RAW vs JPEG - A REAL Comparison!
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- Опубліковано 7 кві 2021
- The first video: • RAW vs JPEG - A Practi...
This video continues the discussion about Raw vs Jpeg, but it addresses not only a RAW file converted JPEG, but also the In-Camera JPEG.
I had a lot of people commenting on the unfair use of a JPEG made from a Raw file from my last video, so I figured I would run the same test as the last video, but also see how an in-camera JPEG measured up.
I was fully expecting to see no real difference between the two JPEG compressions, boy was I wrong!
This one is a real eye-opener! I learned a lot about JPEG conversions and just how much data is baked into a RAW file.
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Great experiment Blake! It's important to know that each camera manufacturer has different processing engines and will treat the in-camera jpegs differently. Throw in the comments others have made the settings in the camera like picture mode/profile - it becomes important for everyone to experiment with their own camera - at least if they want to consider what shooting in jpeg means to their final results.
Thanks Blake. I always appreciate your insights and testing.
Shooting in RAW gives me complete control over the result that I'm looking to achieve. Shooting in Jpeg would mean letting my camera choosing for me, hum that is a no-no for me. Plus, shooting in RAW makes me learn so many things like what happens with saturation, contrast, sharpness, etc because I have to adjust these in post-prod and know what these are and what are there impact. Thank you for your videos! Great job as usual!
I was also puzzled with your video last week. This is a real comparison in my opinion.
Excellent. Perfect nerdy deep dive into jpeg versus raw. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you like my nerdisms!
Great video, and excellent sense of humor.
Thanks 🤣
Very interesting Blake, especially at the under exposed files
Right? That Raw file was like... "Hey JPEG, hold my beer"
Thank you for showing some of the complexities of image processing. The raw file is the most true representation of what the camera captured, because many of the processing decisions are made in subsequent steps. If the camera or SW makes a jpeg, it's doing lens correction for distortion and chromatic aberration, color space (like sRGB), sharpening, color balance and saturation, noise reduction, adding compression artifacts, etc... which are fixed and giving you a potentially lower dynamic range image due to 8 bits per RGB channel. But for many images, jpeg can be just fine these days with good a good camera.
That is true. I may try to reverse engineer everything that happens in a JPEG conversion from a Raw image one day. That would be fun.
Thank you, very interesting and informative.
Glad it was helpful!
Hi Blake,
I know I do not have to introduce your buddy Jim Welninski to you at all, since it may actually be so that you introduced him to many of your subscribers. Having said that I think you may even know where I am heading to considering this subject of tone and color and contrast in JPEG vs RAW. I have seriously found that Jim is perfectly right in stating that those Raw images too have a load of possibly unwanted contrast and thus tone and color as well, as compared to the image treated (that is processed) with their camera-specific Real Raw Profiles. It's really true and accurate that this opens new doors or perspectives, especially so when also introducing steps of Lab-colorspace processing for increasing contrast without color-shifts. There really is still lots to discover here, but then again, also there .....
Thanks again Blake... 👍
You bet!
Very well explained. Thank you. I'm wondering if its possible to reverse engineer a jpeg to see what adjustments the camera made to the capture data to create the in-camera jpeg (if that makes any sense at all)? In other words what 'decisions' has the camera made about exposure, dynamic range, contrast, colour, luminosity etc before baking the file as a jpeg?
Ooooooh I love that! off to experiment!
Blake, great info, however, one other thing to consider when photographing in just JPEG; in your workflow, you can't do the "Optic" correction in Camera RAW - there's no data for it as there is in the RAW file. For my settings, I use RAW+M Jpeg so I can strip those for social media with out lots of resizing etc.. All my work is form the RAW. Thanks for sharing your results!
Yep! It's not a raw file so it doesn't read the lens optics the same way.
This was a great subject. My take away is I just need to record RAW. Thanks!
Agreed! In the end it's better, IMO
Basically, you either have to know what you're doing when shooting, or you have to be good at post-processing. In decent, or at least controlled conditions, you can work in JPEG (wedding photographers do; they're not going to post-process a few hundred raw images per job). When conditions get more difficult, it may be useful to switch to Raw + JPEG to have some insurance. These days, though, there's way too much snobbism associated with shooting in raw, just as certain so-called experts will smile indulgently when you tell them you're not shooting in full manual mode.
And by the way, shooting JPEG is much more than flipping a switch. Depending on the camera, there are countless parameters that can be set that will significantly alter the characteristics of out-of-camera JPEGs, such as white balance, color saturation, shadow and highlight settings, film simulation (in the case of Fujifilm camera), etc. As stated above: when you know your camera and how to shoot you can mostly get by with JPEG. Otherwise, you had better be good at post processing.
There's a whole lot of information you are leaving out about jpg files. All of the adjustments your camera makes with a jpg is based on what picture profile you select. Vivid and landscape will give you the most color saturation and contrast. Maybe even sharpening too. So your image output in jpg depends on which profile you select. If you use faithful, standard or flat (depending on your camera) you will not see very much adjustments made. One reason why raw files are better to use is that it doesn't matter what white balance you use because you can change it later in post. You have to get your white balance correct with a jpg because you can't change it later. Jpgs here abbot 256 color tones. Raw fines have between 4000 and 16,000 different tones for more accurate colors. If you push a jpg too far with color tones you will start to get banding because there aren't enough colors. You'll get that onion peel effect. Especially in the sky or any other solid color. And something most people don't know, when you shoot in raw there will be a jpg file embedded into that raw file. This is the image you see on your LCD screen on the back of the camera. That's why your pictures look better on your camera than when you first import your raw files into Lightroom or whatever you use. That jpg that is embedded will use the picture profile you have selected. If you want to see your pictures as you will see the raw file when you import it, use a flat profile that doesn't apply very much contrast, saturation or any other color tone adjustments. You can also make changes to the picture profile that you use or create a custom profile of your own. I rarely use jpg. You have far more dynamic range with a raw file. Also, your histogram is based on your jpg not the raw file. You can have slight clipping and still recover most if not all of it because raw files have more data than a jpg. And your light meter selection will have a lot to do with how your histogram looks. Some people are content with jpg straight out of camera and that's fine. I prefer raw so I can have more control over how my pictures look.
The fairness is in controlling for variables that can be controlled.
Good points, Carl!
@@StevenSeiller jpg files can be controlled even though they are limited. A lot of people never get that far because they never learn their camera. They never get out of auto mode. There are some photographers that primarily shoot in jpg and abuse their settings in the picture controls to suit their preference.
Agreed, Carl. My comment regarding fairness was more a commentary on Blake’s dilemma with fairness.
☑️ In-camera jpgs are best in situations with controlled, consistent lighting and pre-determined output needs. And for photographers who don’t know what they are missing in RAW or don’t have the time/capacity to process it.
⚖️ Choices and Tradeoffs ...
@@carlmcneill1139 Finally somebody mentioned the banding AKA onion peel effect! I had no idea shooting in RAW will help eliminate that until I read your comments. I've read a lot about JPEG versus RAW and I haven't come across anyone who shared this info. Makes you wonder why some people even bother with these UA-cam videos when they aren't fully educated on the subject. Maybe you should be the one making a video 🙂. Much appreciated!
@@jayryan7473 if you don't edit your pictures then it's ok to use jpg. It's when you edit and start pushing the sliders around trying to make big changes is when you'll see it. Jpg captures 256 levels of brightness from black to white per color channel. Raw captures between 4000+ to 16,000+ per channel. Jpg is 8 bit whereas raw is usually 12 or 14 bit. But you need to make sure that Lightroom and Photoshop are set up to be using 16 bit. I think Lightroom is automatically. I can't remember about Photoshop.
Blake you totally crack me up!! Those poor jpegs!
Poor Poor JPEGS :(
As several other have mentioned, the in-camera JPG is 'cooked' from RAW according to a selected picture control (Nikon's term). I would say that the picture control is not really cooked by the camera so much as cooked by the company's engineers and color specialists. At least in Nikon world, the picture controls can be modified by the user to get the optimal results depending on subject, including up to 9 user customized picture controls. So highly tuned versions might be saved, say for high contrast subjects, as one example. So theoretically, a JPG shooter does have a way to perfect the output without shooting RAW. In practice, it's even better to shoot RAW with its deeper dynamic range, then apply presets & profiles to achieve the desired look. You're not limited to just 9 custom settings! And of course, your IP² materials really blow this wide open!
Thank you for the comparison ... in my humble opinion it was clearly enough in the first video but probably someone need a serious deep dive into it ... is, that someone, really take pictures in jpeg? Which camera is used for the jpeg ? Which profile color? Different sensor producers, different results ... but thank you for showing me how it works Sony ... is interesting ☺️
Agreed! I did learn quite a bit here though. I found it helpful for my own purposes digging a little deeper.
All my respect for your work.
I crop jpeg sports high iso 4000 and up to 10000 would cropping raw be that much better vs time consuming ??
Being an amateur I’ll continue to shoot heif because I really don’t see a huge difference unless you zoom in
Watched a million videos where they say you have to shoot Raw. I use Canon R6 and shoot jpeg on one sd card and raw on the other. I find that time and time again my edited jpegs end up better than edited Raw. I thought it was that Luminar AI isn't great at editing jpegs but tried other software and still the fans result.
Now I only use the raw files where there is something wrong with the straight out of camera picture e.g the picture is far too over exposed (or under exposed) and need the extra info from the raw file.
In an attempt to see for myself the look of JPEG compared to RAW, I took a number of RAW + JPEG photos with my Canon PowerShot SX70H. All in daylight, a countryside view with a river, perfect sunny day with some lovely white clouds. They offered quite a large dynamic range.
Given the apparent prevailing view I encounterd in researching this subjet on the Web, namely that RAW was generally much better than JPEG, I was shocked by my results. Beleive it or not: in every case my JPEGs out of camera were slightly better to my eyes than their accompanying RAWs, and entirely acceptable.
I made no attempt though to do some post-processing to see what could be done and how JPEGs would behave compared to the RAWs using the same adjustments settings, or vice-versa.
Yep, a JPEG is designed to look better from the manufacturer as they have things happening that are like post production happening during the compression. So a RAW file is RAW data and it needs a certain level of treatment to look the way it should. A raw file should never be taken for face value.
Raw data is just 0’s and 1’s. You can’t view that. What you see is a minimally processed raw file when you view a raw file. The jpeg is just much more processed.
3️⃣💥🥊 Awesome! Now Round 3: 🌅 Canon vs. Nikon vs. Sony JPG! 😱
The sound was coming from a CD converted to a tape.
haha
Hehehe 😂😂😂 ‘the fair part’ intro
I thought at least one person would like that.
Fair is what comes to the edge of your town in the middle of summer.....
JPEGs from the camera are also processed RAW files. Procession parameters are grouped into camera settings (e.g. white balance, vivid, neutral, portrait) etc. As technology progresses the JPEGs from camera are more and more accurately reproduce the same quality images you yourself can achieve. They can, sometimes, be even better as the "RAW" files you get might have been processed before stored on the memory card. The only thing which will remain the same no matter what: JPEGs have much less information than RAW files (fewer colors, fewer tones, uncorrectable sharpening, JPEG artifacts). This means that if you decide later on you want a different look for your image or want to enlarge it, you are handicapped you may not be able to do it. Similarly RAW processing also improves, but using JPEGs these improvements are lost for you.
Is this something like a Woke JPEG? LOL! Love your videos, Blake!
🤣 haha! Yeah, something like that... Oh culture... 🤣
I suppose that the majority of people who buy cameras use jpegs only, because they are not inclined to take the time/expense to develop the raw files. And I imagine that camera companies have many employees that spend much of their time finding the recipe for the best quality jpegs for the different camera settings like: iso, white balance, picture mode, etc... I think that's why many jpegs clip the whites by making the overall image brighter so it has less noise and is more pleasing to most users. So, for camera manufacturers, it's survival of the fittest based on jpegs on most (but not all) of their camera models. Of course this is just conjecture on my part, but certainly cameras are much better now than when I got my first digital camera back in 2002 (Sony F707).
The jpeg had an almost 3D quality to it.
yeah, that can be a downside of sharpening. Those trees did almost appear 3d.
Interesting. So, if you know what you're doing and don't want to edit that much, shoot jpeg. Otherwise, shoot raw and show people jpegs. I really like the idea of som finality in shooting jpegs.
That pretty much sums it up 😁
It's not "fair" that I can't afford "L" lenses....... pfftt...
Lol
LOL!!!!!!!