Personally, if the photos are just personal snaps, then JPG will do just fine. However, having a RAW+JPG combo won’t hurt either. Remember, the newer Flashcards are available, you could buy a couple without burning a hole in your wallet. I have several cards I take with me, and I always shoot everything in RAW+JPG formats. Later I review them, and if the JPG came out nicely, I toss the RAW in the bin. Simple.

Finally, let’s be honest, we can make lots of debates, comparisons or excuses, but it all comes down to our ability to learn and change the way we do things.
If you are reluctant to shoot RAW, then don’t. It’s not a crime to shoot only in JPG. But for the Pros out there, RAW should ALWAYS be used for one obvious reason; Total Control. Period.

However if you’re worried about RAW, here’s this:
Shoot RAW all the time. Yup. Have enough memory card hanging around in case of. BUT, that’s not all.
Now, before importing and making the mistake of importing mass RAW on your machine that take precious disk space, quickly look at all the picture to be imported (this also let’s you rejects some in the pre-import phase).
Identify the one that need RAW processing or major surgery. Put these away temporarily, subfolder maybe?
Then fire up your favorite RAW processor, I’d use Adobe Camera RAW. Then, it’s all up to you, apply whatever settings that suits you to the To-Be-Jpegs.
You get tons of JPGs and few RAWs only for those who needed it. Smile, I mean, you just saved up a bunch of precious space taking, what, three minutes of your life?

When done, process or mess with your low-numbered RAWs. Best of both world.
Unless you’re rich and can afford MASS storage in memory card, then shoot both, but beware – it eats up buffer way more quickly than you can imagine, meaning, far less pictures in a row.

Kudos at Mike’s post. He’s making us realize that we should stop talking about our gear and go take picture.

As for the argument that is constantly made about the camera selecting the raw information for conversion to jpg, and then throwing out the rest, that is the point in shooting jpgs in the first place. You will do the same thing when you edit your raw file and save it as a jpg, or even when you print. Even viewing the file on your monitor will not result in seeing the full color palette of the shot. One way or another, all that information will not be used in the end. Does it help when editing? Only if you hosed the exposure in the first place by a gross amount, and even then, it maybe be a lost cause. Lost detail is lost detail, and even raw cannot put it back in. A good camera, when you shoot jpg, will attempt to process the image to make it as close to the original scene as it can. It has to guess at this, using references in it’s internal database, but usually does a decent job of it in all but the most demanding situations. Because of this, you should end up with a photo that is close enough to allow simple editing to get you where your going. For many photographers, capturing a scene is not there intention. They want to fabricate the scene instead. If you look at images posted around the web, most are extremely exaggerated representations. Landscapes with over saturated colors, over sharpened, selective sharpened, sunsets with colors that never happen in the real world, etc. With digital, it is easier for many to create a good photo, than it is to capture one. If you spend the time learning to capture great shots, you will find the differences in formats because a much less important subject to you, because it’s the content that matters most if you want to be a great photographer. Even Adams had to produce his works of art in the darkroom by dodging and burning, but they are just that -art. Capturing a moment in time that only your eyes could see, that’s photography.

Sorry, that won’t work. As soon as you save it to JPEG, you are loosing all of the extra data, and therefore limiting the degree you can edit the image. There are a couple programs that are built for dealing with RAW files. Lightroom and Camera Raw inside of Photoshop work on both Windows and Mac, and Aperture—my preferred editor—on the Mac.

Hope that helps.

My question is that if you take the raw file then save it as jpeg and then edit it
will it have the same flexibility than editing the raw file and then saving it as a jpeg?

im asking because the program that i used for editing doesnt take raw file so i would have to save the raw as jpeg with the least amount of compression then edit it

thanks in advance =]

Raw – The Best It Can Get.
JPEG – Used for convenience.

Thanks so much for the info.

I find shooting RAW works best. The exception, if I need a print asap (i.e. printed at the local drug store before I download the card to my computer). Then I shoot RAW & Jpeg.

Once I have imported the images into Lightroom I ‘export’ the chosen image(s) to a folder as jpeg, or tiff, at the size and color space prescribed by the project/client. I find that properly exposed RAW images need little to no adjustments in Lightroom. It does a great job of processing the images.

What I would really like to share is the initial reason why the JPEG vs. Raw debate got started years ago.:

(Mike – Sorry about going into the technological aspect of photography, but it’s the reason some people would rather spend an extra grand on a camera that is only “slightly” better than the prosumer versions.)

A long, long, time ago. In a limited storage galaxy far far away… people started to worry that every time they moved an image from one backup source to another (yes – there was a time when storage was unreliable, and worse yet, people used magnetic media for long term storage) image quality was lost. Just opening and re-saving an image lowers the quality of a jpeg image. It’s the built in mathematical algorithm in the JPEG format, which guarantees that loss of information happens each time the algorithm is applied (and it is applied each time you save that image)

Therefore: if you trust that you will be working off the same source image, over and over, and that each re-touched shot will be disposable, then you’re all set.

BUT.. if you find yourself working on an image (i.e., cropping, remapping, filtering, etc.) then RAW would be the best format for archiving. Yes, newer software may not be designed for the oldest equipment, but designers know that the legacy market is a huge, one and chances are you will have converted your archived RAW files into another lossless RAW format, before someone comes up with a compression method that compresses without compromise.

1) Firstly, remember that ALL pictures are RAW. Yes, even Jpegs. All images START OUT as RAW, always. When your camera is set to JPEG, it takes a RAW picture, then AUTOMATICALLY makes a JPEG with default, auto settings, and then just SAVES the JPEG. Since this process essentially happens beneath the radar, people think their camera either takes RAW pictures or JPEGS. This is not the case whatsoever. Your camera can ONLY shoot RAW, the only choice is whether you SAVE that original RAW image, of if your camera throws it away, converts it to a JPEG and then just saves the JPEG.

2)Because of point #1, RAW is always, (yes always!), a superior original format (at least in terms of image quality, less so for convenience). JPEG is essentially a second generation format, akin to a copy or a photocopy. Yes, often a very good copy, but a copy nevertheless. So, why is the original RAW always superior to the copy? The reasons are very simple. Firstly, as noted above, its more versatile, in that you can change and/or correct many things at the RAW stage that have already been processed for, sometimes wrongly, if its a JPEG. But, and more importantly, its just simply:

3) the HUMAN factor. A RAW image can be processed later by a human being. A JPEG cant. Its already BEEN processed by your camera. It’s all done AUTOMATICALLY, much like a TV dinner. RAW is like a home cooked meal, you can change the recipe to suit the meal, whereas a TV dinner is always the same. If you shoot only JPEG, then you must convince yourself that every single image you shoot somehow only requires the EXACT same processing settings (highly naive), or , that somehow your unintelligent camera, can, in the blink of an eye, and more expertly, PROCESS your (originally RAW) files than a human being ever could. Neither of which is true. If you think your JPEGS look just as good or better than your processed RAWS, that just means that you, the human operator, hasnt learned how to properly develop those RAWS better than your camera (yet). And trust me, we’re not dealing with Skynet here. Processing RAWS is an art. Now if you dont want to bother to learn that art, then fine, just shoot JPEG, and make your life easier. But dont be intellectually dishonest; admit to yourself that you are saving only photocopies of the RAW pictures you’re actually taking. Admit that you are sacrificing quality for convenience.

People who say they shoot JPEG for convenience I respect. Those who say they do so for quality dont know what they’re talking about, or why. Most people wrongly think that its the “lossy” aspect of JPEG thats the problem, when its really more the fact that its a “photocopy” thats more the real issue. In fact, there is even a “lossy” form of RAW, called compressed RAW. But its still superior to JPEG, because at least its a lossy original, not a lossy copy, like JPEG.

Another option that might provide a bit of insurance against RAW format obsolescence is to save your photos as a 16 bit .tiff file. .tiff is an old and well establisned format, which should be around for a long time. This format will allow you the same latitude for adjustments as a RAW file. Most if not all film scanners including the very top of the line drum scanners save their files in a 16 bit .tiff format. .tiff is generally saved as a non compressed file.

Anyway, I shoot nothing but RAW with my Canon G9, except for those times when I need to shoot a fast moving object, or when I’m moving fast; it is a P&S after all, and really slow.

And 90% of the time when I shoot RAW, I’m using manual settings because it is just that much more beneficial. One of the main reasons I got a G9 is because it shoots RAW. RAW is awesome (RAWsome? hmm.. ).

I can’t wait to get an XSi

Jeff: I like what you mentioned about the batch processing of RAW images with auto exposure. This ensures that you have images similar to the JPEG processing with very little work – and you are able to retain the flexibility of fine-tuning your images in the future.