JPEG vs RAW: Which Format Do I Shoot In?

1. JPEG, Unprocessed
2. JPEG, Auto Adjustments
3. RAW, Unprocessed
4. RAW, Auto Adjustments

I think these images from Epics Edit Weblog are another great expla­na­tion of why every­one should seri­ously con­sider shoot­ing in RAW rather then JPEG. Com­par­ing num­bers 1 & 2 with 3 & 4, one can see that the RAW files come out look­ing much more even and nat­ural, even before any user-directed changes. Once the cre­ative options of RAW are accounted for, it should be unde­ni­able that RAW is supe­rior to JPEG. It sim­ply offers more options, while pro­duc­ing a bet­ter image. Based on the above pho­tos, it is safe to assume that you should shoot in RAW when­ever pos­si­ble (and use a Nikon).

If, by chance, you don’t trust those eas­ily faked exam­ples (you can’t trust any­thing on the web these days), here is my tes­ti­mo­nial: In my hum­ble expe­ri­ence, RAW can make a world of dif­fer­ence. Some­times all it does is give you a bit more play in your cre­ative options; other times it’s a life saver, giv­ing you chance to use that shot you thought was lost. It’s the best for­mat out there for 99% of situations.

In essence, a RAW file is of intrin­si­cally higher qual­ity than a JPEG. It allows you to make major changes to an image after you’ve shot it and still retain good qual­ity. And in work­ing with RAW, you never mod­ify the orig­i­nal file. But — and this is a big but — that file requires two to ten times more stor­age space than a JPEG.

Yes, it’s a big­ger file, but hard dri­ves are cheap, really cheap. You paid $2000 on your cam­era, the least you can do is pony up a bit more for some extra mem­ory and hard drive space.

No mat­ter what your level of pho­tog­ra­pher you are, here are some of the rea­sons why you should use RAW:

• Begin­ner pho­tog­ra­phers should use RAW because it is more for­giv­ing. As soon as you move up from that point-and-shoot cam­era, you will have an option to shoot in RAW. Take that option and use it, you can thank me later. You are learn­ing, and you are going to make mis­takes. Even in auto­matic mode, you are going to end up with shots that are exposed incor­rectly. The RAW for­mat gives a begin­ner pho­tog­ra­pher one major advan­tage: expo­sure cor­rec­tion. Using RAW, you will have more of a chance to cor­rect all those basic DSLR mis­takes that are bound to hap­pen. Over­ex­posed a shot? No prob­lem, just cor­rect it in post pro­cess­ing. To much vignetting in another image? Same easy process. Ini­tially, RAW may seem like more work. Pho­tos are most use­ful in JPEG (this is slowly chang­ing), so you will spend a bit of time con­vert­ing from RAW into JPEG. Trust me, the advan­tages in post pro­cess­ing and loss­less image manip­u­la­tion far out­weigh the loss of time, the larger file size, and the minor annoy­ances that that come with learn­ing this new stan­dard. Being able to basi­cally adjust expo­sure after the fact lets you avoid brack­et­ing and focus on com­po­si­tion. With RAW you don’t have to be afraid to shoot in man­ual mode anymore.

• Inter­me­di­ate pho­tog­ra­phers should use RAW because it allows for more cre­ative options in post pro­cess­ing. Hope­fully, after some time get­ting adjusted, you will be able to take that next-to-perfect expo­sure right out of the cam­era rather then labor­ing in Cam­er­aRaw after the fact. Once you’ve hit this stage, the RAW for­mat becomes less essen­tial as a cor­rec­tion tool. Instead, it enlarges the cre­ative pal­let, putting you in con­trol of the pho­tos. You can tweak and adjust to your heart’s con­tent with­out any worry about mess­ing up the original.

• Advanced pho­tog­ra­phers should use RAW because the file for­mat pro­vides the full infor­ma­tion gath­ered by the cam­era. When you’ve bought an expen­sive cam­era, why not use it to its poten­tial? The RAW for­mat deliv­ers the entirety of infor­ma­tion cap­tured by your cam­era. If you’ve paid for that high qual­ity body and lens, it makes sense to ensure your prints are of the same cal­iber. In real­ity, if you are at this stage and still shoot­ing in JPEG, you must have a pretty good rea­son to do so and I won’t be able to con­vince you oth­er­wise. You know what you are doing, I’ll leave it at that.

You can head over to the Epics Edit Weblog for more info­ma­tion on the above RAW vs JPEG pho­tos. There are a num­ber of other sites dis­cussing this issue as well. See RAW vs JPEG at Dig­i­tal Pho­tog­ra­phy School, PopPhoto’s opin­ion on the debate, or, for a more tech­ni­cal expla­na­tion of RAW, TIFF, and JPEG, go here or here.