RAW vs. JPEG
Practically every beginner photographer after playing around with his camera for a couple of days begins to wonder what exactly RAW is. Is it better then JPEG? What are the upsides? What are the downsides? Well hopefully by the end of reading this post you’ll just know exactly which image format is going to be better for you.
The text book definition for RAW is this: an “image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, image or motion picture film scanner. Raw files are so named because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be used with a bitmap graphics editor or printed.”
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In English, all that means is that when you take a picture in RAW the format, your camera will not process or tweak images contents like the contrast, color, vibrance, brightness etc… Instead, once you load the images onto your computer, you will have ability to adjust these settings yourself the way you like them. Thus, keep in mind that RAW shots when taken, may not look as vibrant or colorful but that is because the camera has not adjusted those settings and has just stored the image as it appeared on the camera’s sensor. For this reason, RAW images also tend to be fairly larger than JPEGs. Once again, this is because when your shooting RAW, all or most of the information is stored as it appeared on the sensor, unlike in JPEGs where a lot of the data is compressed and lost once changes in contrast, vibrance, and brightness have been made by the camera itself giving you an extremely smaller file size when compared to RAW images.
To break it down in a general manner, I will simply lists the positive and negatives of both formats.
RAW
- No data is lost, image is captured and saved directly off the sensor of the camera. This allows you to have a greater control of post processing when editing an image.
- When shooting RAW, you don’t have to worry too much about exposure, color, blacks, highlights, saturation, white balance along with many other things because you can go back and change those settings when editing the image.
- Takes a longer time to process images when shooting RAW, because you have to process it to your liking — since the colors may not be that vibrant, you may want to increase the contrast etc…, then convert the file to a JPEG file and then make further minor, fine tuning adjustments if necessary.
- File sizes are quite large, may restrict the amount of RAW images you can take on smaller memory cards.
- Certain software is required in order to convert RAW images into JPEGs and for processing RAW images in the RAW format. Though most camera manufacturers provide their own software for such tasks, I personally prefer Adobe Photoshops plugin: Camera Raw to do all my work for RAW and then use Adobe Photoshop to make all my minor and fine adjustments. Adoble Lightroom is also another great program for dealing with RAW files.
JPEG
- Doesn’t take up an excessive amount of memory to store on a memory card. You can take a relatively good amount of pictures on smaller memory cards when compared to RAW.
- No software required to process the photos; JPEG is already a common image format and can be taken and used directly off the camera without post processing or file conversion. This is good for general shooting, like when you are just messing around pretty much.
- Quick and efficient when compared to RAW. Its not the best quality, but still pretty good. Once again, good for general shooting, messing around.
- Colors, white balance, saturation, highlights have already been changed by the camera giving you better looking pictures to begin with. (This can be a positive or negative point, it just depends on the photographer.)
- On the downside, lots of data is lost when the file is compressed into JPEG format. This limits the amount of post processing you can do after you have taken the picture (i.e. changes in exposure and color may turn out to look not so great since that data was lost when the file was compressed. So your pretty much stuck with what you shot.)
- Less control of the image after the shot is taken.
Overall, both image formats have their ups and downs.
Personally, I use both formats depending on the occasion. When there is just a normal family gathering, or say I’m just hanging out with my friends, 40 RAW shots is a lot of work and takes a lot of time to convert and process each to the way I like it in terms of color, contrast etc… So in that case, JPEG is the way to go because its fast, efficient, and not as much time is needed to process the shots since the camera already provides relatively decent photos in which the contrast is good and the colors are pretty vibrant. Furthermore, you can even tell your camera how much saturation, color, contrast, by taking advantage of the custom user settings if it is available on your camera. By taking advantage of these settings, this will prove to be less work for you when it comes to processing the photos, as the images will already be one more step closer to how you wish them to be. Though JPEG may not get you the perfect results you are looking for, it can be quite a time and work saver when it comes to general shooting.
When taking photos seriously however, there is no other option other than RAW for me. Even though on your camera screen and even on your computer screen the photos may look quite dull and bland, however, with the correct pre-post processing (before conversion) and adding final adjustments in normal post processing after the image has been converted, the results which you get are simply amazing. I feel that the extra time that goes into pre-post processing and conversion is well worth it for the results that you get. Also having more of control over the image will cut you some slack when a photo turns out to be overexposed or underexposed, since all the information is retained, stored, and can be changed later in pre-post processing. Lastly, by being able to change so many things like color, contrast, exposures, saturation, white balance, you can tweak a RAW image changing all these settings until you are satisfied without damaging the way the photo looks.
When it comes down to it all, RAW is simply the best in my opinion because you can change settings as much as you want until you feel that you have “perfected” your photo. However, JPEG is also a good choice and more convenient even though it may not exactly nail the way you want a photo to be, and is limited in terms of how much processing can be applied before the photo starts looking fake, it still gets pretty close to being that perfect photo.
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Additional Websites:
If you are interested in actually seeing the difference in the image quality between RAW and JPEG files or wish to see a more in depth article regarding the two formats, here are some of the websites that I learned from when I first came across the RAW image format and how it differed from JPEG.
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Citations:
“Raw image format.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 2 Mar 2009, 05:11 UTC. 18 Mar 2009 <>.