RAW + Jpeg why would one use this option.

[ericmark]

Both my Pentax K10D and Nikon D7000 have the option to convert RAW to Jpeg in camera with many user controls so at any time one can produce a Jpeg in camera from the RAW image. I can see where taking to print on the high street or sending electronically one may need RAW + Jpeg but the room taken up on memory card and the delay while waiting for camera to save when taking a series as with HDR or Panorama means that only in special circumstances would this option seem appropriate. Yet I hear many photographers say how they select RAW + Jpeg as default mode.

So what am I missing why do they also auto save a Jpeg image?

[Marko]

1 - Many photographers don't know a thing about RAW and don't have a clean workflow yet....so they shoot both?
2 - I guess it's possible that the odd photographer will send jpegs somewhere immediately and work the raw files later?
3 - I believe when tethering your camera, a JPEG must be shot

[ericmark]

When tethering your camera the options on my software vary a lot between Pentax and Nikon and not using the expensive Nikon software so not sure on this but in both cases can use RAW but it does cause problems so can see why it would not be used.

The whole subject started at local camera club where it was realised non of the advanced members used free software like RawTherapee and Gimp so for beginners to get help they are forced to buy expensive software. So I decided to take a look at free software and see what could be done. To my mind we need to extract the information held in the RAW file and compress this into a Jpeg and until this is done all the other processes can wait. Adobe software has graduated filters and adjustment brushes not found with RawTherapee so in order to lighten dark spots or darken light spots you would need to create multi images then blend together again so next point was how do you blend together?

Having used Photoshop for years my first idea was to use same tools in Gimp but although Gimp has layers, Masks, and blend modes at first my attempts to auto blend did not work and the on line instructions did not help much.

However then it all worked and so simple once you find it.

Gimp will not handle RAW images so first bit is in the camera, and we produce two Jpeg images one +2 EV and one -2 EV then these are loaded into Gimp, but not “Open” but “Open as Layers” this will then give us two layers. With lighter layer on the top add a layer mask selecting “Greyscale copy of layer” and tick “Invert mask” this will merge the two images together grabbing the whole range of the two exposures. As with all true HDR (rather than tone mapping) the picture will become rather wishy washy and likely one will want to adjust the Opacity to get the effect wanted.

It worked a dream but having done this my next thought was how so many people in the club would say how they took Jpeg + RAW and so I started to wonder if my camera Pentax K10D was something special being able to produce Jpeg from RAW. So looked at Nikon D7000 instructions which were nearly the same as Pentax giving the ability to produce Jpeg with user options like + or - 2EV stops while making them.

As to all the other makes of camera I don't know which was why I asked.

If I had never used Photoshop I would have never looked at how to merge pictures like this with Gimp. With Photoshop I would use a mask and the Apply command but since Camera RAW 6.5 has all the filters anyway no real point.

[Anuj]

hi,

may be i dont do much action shooting, but jpeg+raw recording time is very bearable in my d3100.
also as Marko pointed out, i dont have much of work flow. i go through all jpegs very quickly and chooses to edit very few shots in raw. also jpegs are good for quick sharing, even if they are flawed most of my family and friends dont mind it. I dont miss any workflow because i dont do this on daily basis, or take hundreds of images.
regards
anuj

[JAS_Photo]

I actually do not do this yet, (my D300 did not have it as an option) but an example would be when I do the Santa photos for instance, we print them on the spot so there is not time for any editing at all so you must use jpegs. But I also post them on the Club's Flickr so I can do a little editing before uploading them. Most of the editing I do though is just to get a a more pleasing crop.

[theantiquetiger]

I have to use it when using my Eye-Fi memory card because iPhones and iPads don't recognize RAW. (EYE-Fi is a memory card with a WIFI chip in it. It transfers the image to my phone as soon as I take it)

[Anuj]

wow i didnt know about eye-fi, tat's cool!!!

[jjeling]

There is another card called a "flucard" which does the same thing. I just purchased a new k3 and there is one that is supposed to be released specifically for it in the coming months. The K3 Flucard will give me almost full wireless control of the camera, from focusing, aperature, shutter, and iso from just about any wifi device. The only problems I've heard about these is that they run very hot which is my only hesitation.

[ericmark]

I can see how with a specials like the Wifi card or Santa photo that time and space mean Jpeg has to be selected. However when I got my late sisters camera all pictures were Jpeg not a single RAW image on the card. The Nikon D7000 is not really designed as a point and shoot camera she insisted the top of range compacts were not good enough.

My first thing was to change to RAW but I will admit I just never thought of using the camera to convert. So first stumbling block was CS4 would not process the files and I had to either convert to DNG or load up CS5 and upgrade to Camera RAW 6.5 to be able to view the pictures. The camera has a very good converter built in and had my sister taken in RAW the many photos with wrong colour temperature set could have been so easy corrected.

Adobe do seem to have the best RAW converter able to do selective changes with graduated filter and adjustment brush which seem to be missing from the rest so with for example RawTherapee one would need to convert multi times and combine to get same result. This can also be done with the inbuilt converter meaning you can get a far higher dynamic range then if you allow the camera to auto produce a Jpeg.

Our D-SRL cameras have a green mode where we can select near every function to be auto set and there will be times we have to use it. However in the main the whole reason for using a D-SLR is so we can take control of some of the normally automatic functions so to me default should be RAW. OF specials we select Jpeg but default should be RAW as so easy to change from RAW to Jpeg but impossible to change Jpeg to RAW.