Why use raw?

Pat <groups.RemoveThis@artisticphotography.us> wrote in
news:1182389661.660274.118110@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

> On Jun 20, 9:23 pm, JP <x....RemoveThis@nospam.ponkey.com> wrote:
>> Ok so i patched my S3IS. I like some of the tools that came with the
>> CHKD patch. one is the ability to shoot raw images. so now not only
>> do I get the jpg but also the crw. photoshop won't recognize these
>> images. gimp will now that its patched. The CHKD Wiki it says to
>> use Raw Therapee. It won't recognize these images either. Playing
>> with a raw file was one of the reasons I wanted to get a dslr. I'm
>> kinda thinkin, what's the point? Are there things that can be done to
>> a raw image that can't be done to a jpg? What file format is best to
>> save them as? The raw is around 35 megs. a tif saved to 17 megs.
>> Jpgs from the camera save to 2.5-4 megs. I'm not done beating my
>> brain on this yet but I really think I might need some counseling.
>>
>> Thank you,
>> JP
>
>
> Oh, Gawd, please don't start this debate yet again.
>
> Google is your friend. Either search this group within your
> newsserver or go to google groups and search it there. It is a weekly
> debate and nothing new is going to be written for a long, long time.
> You might as well read the archives. It's cheaper and easier than
> therapy. Google is your friend.
>
>

Thank you. I will. I have been reading but, as you may have
guessed, I'm somewhat early into my education.

You say this is a weekly debate. Either I havn't seen it in months or,
my memory failed me, again. Either is just as likely.

JP
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw? 

JP wrote:
> Pat <groups RemoveThis @artisticphotography.us> wrote in
> news:1182389661.660274.118110@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com:
>
>> On Jun 20, 9:23 pm, JP <x... RemoveThis @nospam.ponkey.com> wrote:
>>> Ok so i patched my S3IS. I like some of the tools that came with the
>>> CHKD patch. one is the ability to shoot raw images. so now not only
>>> do I get the jpg but also the crw. photoshop won't recognize these
>>> images. gimp will now that its patched. The CHKD Wiki it says to
>>> use Raw Therapee. It won't recognize these images either. Playing
>>> with a raw file was one of the reasons I wanted to get a dslr. I'm
>>> kinda thinkin, what's the point? Are there things that can be done to
>>> a raw image that can't be done to a jpg? What file format is best to
>>> save them as? The raw is around 35 megs. a tif saved to 17 megs.
>>> Jpgs from the camera save to 2.5-4 megs. I'm not done beating my
>>> brain on this yet but I really think I might need some counseling.
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>> JP
>>
>> Oh, Gawd, please don't start this debate yet again.
>>
>> Google is your friend. Either search this group within your
>> newsserver or go to google groups and search it there. It is a weekly
>> debate and nothing new is going to be written for a long, long time.
>> You might as well read the archives. It's cheaper and easier than
>> therapy. Google is your friend.
>>
>>
>
> Thank you. I will. I have been reading but, as you may have
> guessed, I'm somewhat early into my education.
>
> You say this is a weekly debate. Either I havn't seen it in months or,
> my memory failed me, again. Either is just as likely.
>
Within last two weeks, certainly. Unfortunately, such "debates" don't
always carry a Subject Line that indicates such.

--
john mcwilliams
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw? 

On Jun 21, 2:23 am, JP <x....DeleteThis@nospam.ponkey.com> wrote:
> Ok so i patched my S3IS. I like some of the tools that came with the CHKD
> patch. one is the ability to shoot raw images. so now not only do I get
> the jpg but also the crw. photoshop won't recognize these images. gimp
> will now that its patched. The CHKD Wiki it says to use Raw Therapee. It
> won't recognize these images either. Playing with a raw file was one of
> the reasons I wanted to get a dslr. I'm kinda thinkin, what's the point?
> Are there things that can be done to a raw image that can't be done to a
> jpg? What file format is best to save them as? The raw is around 35 megs.
> a tif saved to 17 megs. Jpgs from the camera save to 2.5-4 megs. I'm not
> done beating my brain on this yet but I really think I might need some
> counseling.
>
> Thank you,
> JP

See if you can update the Camera Raw for your photoshop; it will
probably include support for the CRW files already.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw? 

JP <xnews.TakeThisOut@nospam.ponkey.com> wrote:
>Ok so i patched my S3IS. I like some of the tools that came with the CHKD
>patch. one is the ability to shoot raw images. so now not only do I get
>the jpg but also the crw. photoshop won't recognize these images. gimp
>will now that its patched. The CHKD Wiki it says to use Raw Therapee. It
>won't recognize these images either.

Well, when you try unsupported you live on the bleeding edge.

> Playing with a raw file was one of
>the reasons I wanted to get a dslr.

And so you got an S3 instead?

> I'm kinda thinkin, what's the point?
>Are there things that can be done to a raw image that can't be done to a
>jpg?

Yep. Color balance, exposure tweaking, color saturation, contrast.

> What file format is best to save them as? The raw is around 35 megs.

35MB?!? Sheesh. RAW images from my 30D only run about 8MB. But I
suppose that's what you get when you rely upon hacks.

> Jpgs from the camera save to 2.5-4 megs. I'm not
>done beating my brain on this yet but I really think I might need some
>counseling.

Stick with jpeg.

--
Ray Fischer
rfischer.TakeThisOut@sonic.net
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw? 

"JP" <xnews RemoveThis @nospam.ponkey.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9955D9A5E4E19joeponkeycom@216.196.97.142...
> Ok so i patched my S3IS. I like some of the tools that came with the CHKD
> patch. one is the ability to shoot raw images. so now not only do I get
> the jpg but also the crw. photoshop won't recognize these images. gimp
> will now that its patched. The CHKD Wiki it says to use Raw Therapee. It
> won't recognize these images either. Playing with a raw file was one of
> the reasons I wanted to get a dslr. I'm kinda thinkin, what's the point?

> Are there things that can be done to a raw image that can't be done to a
> jpg?

Not really.. but you can get better results from raw as it has more data to
work with.

> What file format is best to save them as? The raw is around 35 megs.
> a tif saved to 17 megs. Jpgs from the camera save to 2.5-4 megs. I'm not
> done beating my brain on this yet but I really think I might need some
> counseling.

Sounds like you need some better firmware on the camera.
Maybe you should forget raw on that firmware and buy a camera with proper
support for raw if you need it.
They may fix the firmware sometime then you can try raw on it.
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw? 

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:23:46 -0500, JP wrote:

> Ok so i patched my S3IS. I like some of the tools that came with the CHKD
> patch. one is the ability to shoot raw images. so now not only do I get
> the jpg but also the crw. photoshop won't recognize these images. gimp
> will now that its patched. The CHKD Wiki it says to use Raw Therapee. It
> won't recognize these images either. Playing with a raw file was one of
> the reasons I wanted to get a dslr. I'm kinda thinkin, what's the point?
> Are there things that can be done to a raw image that can't be done to a
> jpg? What file format is best to save them as? The raw is around 35 megs.
> a tif saved to 17 megs. Jpgs from the camera save to 2.5-4 megs. I'm not
> done beating my brain on this yet but I really think I might need some
> counseling.
>
> Thank you,
> JP

I've gone to raw pretty much exclusively on my Kodak P850. Why? Because
you can do a lot more with it. You can do much more in terms of exposure
and contrast control that you can with a jpeg. Why is that? Because the
raw has more data to work with - in my case 12 bit channels instead of
eight. I've fiddled a little with High Dynamic Range, and it appears you
can get nearly the same results from one raw image as you can from five
jpegs with 1 stop bracketing. BTW - on my P850 the raw files are about 9mb
while the tiffs are around 17 - I'm told that is because Kodak does
lossless compression on the raw file.
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw? 

On 2007-06-20 18:23:46 -0700, JP <xnews.TakeThisOut@nospam.ponkey.com> said:

> Ok so i patched my S3IS. I like some of the tools that came with the
> CHKD patch. one is the ability to shoot raw images. so now not only
> do I get the jpg but also the crw. photoshop won't recognize these
> images. gimp will now that its patched.

Get a Mac. Two native Mac Applications both support RAW. Preview and
iPhoto both support RAW. For that matter, even the Finder (The window
where you can see icons in folders, shows the raw image) supports RAW.
Also, Photoshop has support for RAW. Probably you're too out of date
with Photoshop. There are RAW updates for CS2 and CS3 comes with RAW
support out of the box.

--

thepixelfreak
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw? 

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:23:46 -0500, JP <xnews.TakeThisOut@nospam.ponkey.com>
wrote:

>Ok so i patched my S3IS. I like some of the tools that came with the CHKD
>patch. one is the ability to shoot raw images. so now not only do I get
>the jpg but also the crw. photoshop won't recognize these images. gimp
>will now that its patched. The CHKD Wiki it says to use Raw Therapee. It
>won't recognize these images either. Playing with a raw file was one of
>the reasons I wanted to get a dslr. I'm kinda thinkin, what's the point?
>Are there things that can be done to a raw image that can't be done to a
>jpg? What file format is best to save them as? The raw is around 35 megs.
>a tif saved to 17 megs. Jpgs from the camera save to 2.5-4 megs. I'm not
>done beating my brain on this yet but I really think I might need some
>counseling.
>
>Thank you,
>JP

Most commercial raw converters won't ever recognize the CHKD raws
because they aren't "official" On one of the sites, the Russian one if
I remember right, there is a crw to dng converter. Just drag the raw
files you want to convert into a folder and let the program rip.

Raw files are very useful in low light photography-(something I seldom
see mentioned by our complaining experts so maybe there is something
new to add about RAW files). After all what is a ISO 6400 image?--an
ISO 800 image that underexposed by 3 stops.

I'm now using the GIMP converter UFRAW with its bilinear
interpolation mode to convert the files. Bilinear is a plain vanilla
interpolation and unlike other interpolation modes it doesn't try to
'improve' the image--something that makes noisy images worse.

Then I use noise ninja to clean up the image. This workflow doesn't
perform miracles--the S3IS isn't the quietest camera around--but it
does let me get images I might normally pass up.

I would check your raw file sizes--with a S3IS at the max resolution
they should be a little over 7 megs

Save as high quality jpeg. And naturally archive the raws since they
are your 'negatives' Most of the time Tiffs just waste disk space.

jpc
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw? 

This message is not archived
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw? 

On Jun 20, 9:53 pm, JP <x....TakeThisOut@nospam.ponkey.com> wrote:
> Pat <gro....TakeThisOut@artisticphotography.us> wrote innews:1182389661.660274.118110@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com:
>
>
>
> > On Jun 20, 9:23 pm, JP <x....TakeThisOut@nospam.ponkey.com> wrote:
> >> Ok so i patched my S3IS. I like some of the tools that came with the
> >> CHKD patch. one is the ability to shoot raw images. so now not only
> >> do I get the jpg but also the crw. photoshop won't recognize these
> >> images. gimp will now that its patched. The CHKD Wiki it says to
> >> use Raw Therapee. It won't recognize these images either. Playing
> >> with a raw file was one of the reasons I wanted to get a dslr. I'm
> >> kinda thinkin, what's the point? Are there things that can be done to
> >> a raw image that can't be done to a jpg? What file format is best to
> >> save them as? The raw is around 35 megs. a tif saved to 17 megs.
> >> Jpgs from the camera save to 2.5-4 megs. I'm not done beating my
> >> brain on this yet but I really think I might need some counseling.
>
> >> Thank you,
> >> JP
>
> > Oh, Gawd, please don't start this debate yet again.
>
> > Google is your friend. Either search this group within your
> > newsserver or go to google groups and search it there. It is a weekly
> > debate and nothing new is going to be written for a long, long time.
> > You might as well read the archives. It's cheaper and easier than
> > therapy. Google is your friend.
>
> Thank you. I will. I have been reading but, as you may have
> guessed, I'm somewhat early into my education.
>
> You say this is a weekly debate. Either I havn't seen it in months or,
> my memory failed me, again. Either is just as likely.
>
> JP

Okay, here's the synopsis for you. There are 3 camps, two of which
are loud and vocal.

Camp RAW loves it. They contend that it gives you absolute control
and that the post processing isn't too bad. RAW does everything for
you, includes making coffee. The size of the file is larger, but disk
space is cheap.

Camp jpg hates it. They content that you should shoot the picture
right in the first place and then RAW doesn't do too much for you.
The files are smaller, computers handle them better, and the format
will be around forever -- while the jury is still out on the
proprietary RAW formats. Camp jpg also hates it that RAW has excludes
rights to capital letters, being always RAW while no one ever uses
JPG.

Camp Tweener thinks that all tools have the right and wrong uses,
including jpg and RAW. Tweeners think that there are no right or
wrong answers, just levels of appropriateness. There are times to use
it (such as bad lighting conditions) and times not to (your nephew's
birthday party). While Camp RAW and Camp jpg rant at each other, Camp
Tweener realizes that no one will be converted and keeps getting
migranes.
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw? 

Pat wrote:

>
> Okay, here's the synopsis for you. There are 3 camps, two of which
> are loud and vocal.
>
> Camp RAW loves it. They contend that it gives you absolute control
> and that the post processing isn't too bad. RAW does everything for
> you, includes making coffee. The size of the file is larger, but disk
> space is cheap.
>
> Camp jpg hates it. They content that you should shoot the picture
> right in the first place and then RAW doesn't do too much for you.
> The files are smaller, computers handle them better, and the format
> will be around forever -- while the jury is still out on the
> proprietary RAW formats. Camp jpg also hates it that RAW has excludes
> rights to capital letters, being always RAW while no one ever uses
> JPG.
>
> Camp Tweener thinks that all tools have the right and wrong uses,
> including jpg and RAW. Tweeners think that there are no right or
> wrong answers, just levels of appropriateness. There are times to use
> it (such as bad lighting conditions) and times not to (your nephew's
> birthday party). While Camp RAW and Camp jpg rant at each other, Camp
> Tweener realizes that no one will be converted and keeps getting
> migranes.

Or k-f'ing certain threads.....pretty nice summary, and since the Joint
Photographic Experts Group gave rise to the acronym, it's good to write
"JPEG" but I guess we've become used to .jpg, and hence write jpg, due
to the extension being so common in lower case.

--
john mcwilliams
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw? 

>
> Camp Tweener thinks that all tools have the right and wrong uses,
> including jpg and RAW. Tweeners think that there are no right or
> wrong answers, just levels of appropriateness. There are times to use
> it (such as bad lighting conditions) and times not to (your nephew's
> birthday party). While Camp RAW and Camp jpg rant at each other, Camp
> Tweener realizes that no one will be converted and keeps getting
> migranes.
>

Camp Tweener thinks that there are levels of appropriateness.
With my DSLR I always use RAW, especially on my nephew's
birthday party!

Why do I always use RAW.
1. Then I only need one workflow.
2. Then during the shooting I do not have to make decisions
about WB / sharpness / color intensity.
3. Using Raw will sometimes give you better results than
even a good planned jpg.

In general it's less work for in general better pictures.
But it's not for most camera's and it's not for most people,
because it needs some extra knowledge. And there are
a lot of situations where RAW does not or hardly improves
the picture.

So allthough in most situations jpg is great and no RAW is
required. Because for me there is hardly a disadvantage in
RAW, I use RAW when I can. (With my DSLR).

During my first vacation with the DSLR I only had an
limited amount off memory. (Was still expensive).
So I could not do RAW.
But with White Balance, sharpness, color intensity,
I did not have enough experience to actually use that
in my advantage so that was all done on the 'auto' setting.
Now using RAW I do not have to think about those things
during shooting.

Compared to film discspace is so cheap that the extra
memory needed on the computer (and backups) is no
problem.

Ben
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw? 

On Jun 21, 3:46 pm, "ben brugman" <b....TakeThisOut@niethier.nl> wrote:
> > Camp Tweener thinks that all tools have the right and wrong uses,
> > including jpg and RAW. Tweeners think that there are no right or
> > wrong answers, just levels of appropriateness. There are times to use
> > it (such as bad lighting conditions) and times not to (your nephew's
> > birthday party). While Camp RAW and Camp jpg rant at each other, Camp
> > Tweener realizes that no one will be converted and keeps getting
> > migranes.
>
> Camp Tweener thinks that there are levels of appropriateness.
> With my DSLR I always use RAW, especially on my nephew's
> birthday party!
>
> Why do I always use RAW.
> 1. Then I only need one workflow.
> 2. Then during the shooting I do not have to make decisions
> about WB / sharpness / color intensity.
> 3. Using Raw will sometimes give you better results than
> even a good planned jpg.
>
> In general it's less work for in general better pictures.
> But it's not for most camera's and it's not for most people,
> because it needs some extra knowledge. And there are
> a lot of situations where RAW does not or hardly improves
> the picture.
>
> So allthough in most situations jpg is great and no RAW is
> required. Because for me there is hardly a disadvantage in
> RAW, I use RAW when I can. (With my DSLR).
>
> During my first vacation with the DSLR I only had an
> limited amount off memory. (Was still expensive).
> So I could not do RAW.
> But with White Balance, sharpness, color intensity,
> I did not have enough experience to actually use that
> in my advantage so that was all done on the 'auto' setting.
> Now using RAW I do not have to think about those things
> during shooting.
>
> Compared to film discspace is so cheap that the extra
> memory needed on the computer (and backups) is no
> problem.
>
> Ben

Just for the record, any post that contrain the word "always" takes
one out of Camp Tweener and sends them to another camp.
 >> Stay informed about: Why use raw?