At the risk of saying something you already know, I think some folks reading your comment might get the wrong idea that shooting RAW can fix everything.

Shooting in RAW doesn't help if you aren't aware of differences in color temperatures and can't control the color temperature of all the different light sources in the scene. Example, if you're in a Tungsten-lit room and you use your flash to fill, without the right color-correcting gel, RAW WILL NOT RESCUE your images.

RAW, as I'm sure you've been told, is like color negative film. Sure, you can print the image anyway you want, but you still need to have a good sense of not "mixing" your color temperatures especially where there are skin tones.

Carl, those preferring to work in JPEG are not completely up the creek, especially if they spend a little time learning to set a Custom White Balance setting

Terrabyte fills up quickly even with a good 25-32 percent deletion rate, so actually I keep the raw and zap the jpgs and tiffs. Both are actually larger than the raw which I can easily re-edit--

I shoot RAW because of the end requiement. might also pick up a jpg-only camera simply because I have a different purpose for it in mind.

Think that different techniques are applicable to different situations. Shooting raw for a birthday party seems absurd when I could use jpg or p&s pocket camera.

Nothing ever looks as good as the LCD. LCD preview is what you show your friends, not the thing that landed on the computer and got kicked to the vertical file under the desk. Never trust an LCD.

This is my favorite one. I HATE when people say this around me. "O well you have a really nice camera that's why your pictures look so good", no you as&!@#ole it's because I've taken more photographs in the last year than you've taken your whole life, and I have a look and a vision I'm going for before I snap the shutter.

If you're doing studio or lansdscape work, RAW could be an interesting tool, of course - although JPG isn't terrible either, particularly because it's a standard archival photo format. 20 years from now, there'll be software for your JPEGS, but your raw files might be dead if your camera's manufacturer decided to drop support for old models.

Excellent article.

Often those making the biggest argument about JPEG workflows work in small studios, lower end studios or consumer based workflows. The work they do can be amazing and they should be very proud of it. RAW is talked about from the commercial side so much for many reasons and it's simply a requirement. I would guess many of the people have no idea about drum scanners, oil setting positives, CIELAB and real color management that does not come form a box, contract proofs, Apogee workflows, Stochastic printing screens and on and on. These are areas most photographer's don't have to understand and often don't have a clue about. So they think RAW vs JPEG is an issue. In these workflows it's not, JPEGS simply are not a part of the equation and associated with uneducated or less than professional skills. This would be snobbery on their part as JPEG workflows also have a significant place and the quality of the JPEG is vastly better today that it was 10 years ago where most options come from.

My point then is that each has it's merits and neither deserve to be slighted. Use what works for you without getting so emotional about what works best for others.

We can't forget about lens quality as well. As a professional I have certain lenses I use for fun and others for work where the lens quality realy shows and the better ones require less retouching and color correction. Not to mention sharpness. I enjoy your posts, I also write an occasional photo blog at http://pixpro.blogspot.com/ I'd love to read your feedback.

When I want a snapshot or am working in the studio where I can carefully control the light, JPEG may be just fine. But when shooting landscapes or out on the street where lighting is random at best, I tend to shoot RAW more. Maybe I'm a control freak - I don't want someone else making the imaging decision for me!

If you don't like darkroom (Photoshop) work and wish to print without editing or adjusting, then shoot in JPEG. Just get the shot and have fun doing it!

Ansel Adams would have loved it!

http://tonysleep.co.uk/info/digital-workflow explains

I get sick of the post-prod too - and especially clients' incomprehension about paying for it. I used to get sick of darkroom work too, but at least clients accepted the costs as inevitable. Now, everyone with an Ixus thinks they know it all.

I've seen some drop dead perfect pictures taken with a PHD camera, and I've seen (including my own) others taken with higher end cameras that makes me cry in pain.

As for #2... I don't think film is easier than digital for post processing. I've developed color and black & white film as well as done prints off an enlarger (I miss it in some respects). It is much less forgiving than the digital flow. The temp of the chemicals, age of the chemicals, timing of how long in the chemicals, handing pre-fixed film in a careful way, etc can all be killer and be a costly mistake that are not correctable. Digital is MUCH more forgiving in the fact that your negative out of the camera is either good or bad. Outside of losing or overwriting the orignal raw file you can't destroy the negative in the same way as film.

As for #5, *shrug* I always shoot in raw. Not because I want the pain and suffering of post-processing and fudging images (just because I can slack behind the camera and fix it in post doesn't mean I do/should). I do it because consistently handling media means less mistakes when you are under a time crunch.

I'll agree if I had 45 minutes of shooting, and 5 minutes to upload an image to a newspaper that I may change my post-process process. However, I suspect the short cut would be in not converting to *.dng from *.cr and do a selective image importing. Instead of cutting corners in my processing flow.

With good post-processing software like Lightroom it eases the workflow pain. And if you have to crop an image the extra moment to touch a picture up using presets and minor adjustments doesn't add much to the processing cost.

The thing I will agree about is the file size does suck. I shoot with a XSi in raw mode. Importing 350 pictures (half a day of shooting) using USB pretty much kills a good 30+ minutes.

- Ben

Absolutely. I know too many people who look down their noses at those who do not take very single shot in RAW. Those same people are overly dependent on post-processing to correct things that wouldn't have been an issue in the first place if they knew photography's fundamentals. Whether you are using a pinhole, view, 35mm or digital, the basic elements of photography are the same.

I know if I catch myself thinking, "Oh, I can correct that in Photoshop," I am usually getting sloppy.

A couple of disclaimers first. No one knows it all. Even with my so-called years of experience, RodrigoI'm still learning daily. I owe you a beer next time I see you.

What I do know is your choice of subject generally speaking, dictates what works best for you.

If speed is the essence like for sports shooter Jason Collin and señor Rodrigo, a photojournalists, then shooting RAW entirely may not be for you. Shooting both JPEG and RAW, but only processing the JPEG on deadline is the way to go but only if you have fast writing/reading memory cards and an equally capable computer.

However, if your company issued laptop is "old," forget it, stick to jpeg. Try downloading a 8 GB memory card on deadline sometime on a G4 powerbook. You know I feel your pain Rodrigo.

Justin, if you're into landscape/scenic, RAW maybe the way to go especially with High Dynamic Range capability.

Most likely too, if you shoot landscapes, you're not shooting a lot of pictures, so your workflow is not dependent on computer capability.

In the end, I always ask myself this: does this scene in front of me have a realistic chance of being printed bigger than an 8 x 10?

Also, do I prefer to spend the day indoors looking at pictures on my computer or would I rather be outside taking pictures? I don't know about you, I picked up a camera because I want to be outdoors as much as possible.

Finally, there is a certain amount of snobbery anytime art is concerned. There will always be those who are not practicing or making a living from photography, who merely parrot what other pros say about the virtues of RAW just to be appear wise.

The proof should be what works for each individual. Don McKee, your 2 cents goes into my very limited beer fund. Thanks for your wisdom as well.

1. Film negatives are usually quite forgiving, but you must give up some quality. Considerable exposure latitude.

2. Slides (positives) produce fabulous images, but are expensive and quite unforgiving. Not much exposure latitude, but can sometimes be fixed in the darkroom.

3. Digital can produce fabulous images and saves money because film and formal developing is not involved. But it's fussy and can be absolutely unforgiving and when you screw up a digital photo, you have simply screwed it up and there is no hope. Digital photography in the hands of an amateur usually means disaster.

When you shoot JPEG, the camera captures the raw image ("the negative"), processes it the way _it_ thinks things should look (white balance, color correction, noise reduction, sharpening, etc.), spits out the finished JPEG ("the print") and tosses the negative. Not a problem if you always agree with the camera's choice of processing options. But what if you don't agree? Ever look at an image and think "That's not what I saw when I released the shutter!"? If you only have the finished print (the JPEG), instead of the negative (the RAW image), there's only so much fixing you can do in the digital darkroom to make it right.

Shooting in RAW is not so much about enlargement as it is in processing. If you and your camera always agree on the image you see, or you just like living on the edge, then by all means, shoot JPEG. However, if you don't trust your camera to see what you see, or you just like to keep your options open, then RAW is the only way to go.

Just my $0.02.

-Don

p.s. every RAW also contains a camera-processed JPEG. You can use a tool like Michael Tapes' "Instant JPEG from RAW extractor" available free from http://www.rawworkflow.com/ . You can have your cake and eat it, too!

For me it's not the size of files in higher megapixel cameras, it's the amount of noise created when more megapixels are jammed on the same size sensor. For cropping it is always nice to have the resolution to get a good print out of a 50%+ cropped shot, but noise needs to be controlled too.

It's so true that it's more important that you shoot for your requirements - I normally shoot at 10 megapixels which is fine for all the normal stuff. When I forget to drop the size down for eBay products it reminds me of the pixel race and how silly it is.

R!

LOL