Should I be Shooting in JPEG or RAW?

[krphotogs]

Allow me to add my thoughts on this.... I think it depends on what you shoot, if you are going to shoot a hundred shots and post them all to a web-site for friends and family to see - shoot jpeg you will go crazy try to PP them. If you are going to take a hundred shots, and cull them down to 10 or 15 really good ones - shoot in raw.

Jpeg - being an 8 bit file has a much smaller number of colors that can be displayed versus a raw or tiff file (sorry, I have heard aobut 16 bit jpeg but no experience with it). Every time you save a jpeg file by definition you are degrading the quality of the image. Work in raw then your last step is write the jpeg file.

I agree with the one post who commented that you can develop your PP ability while working on your photographic skills. But, if I get to be really good at taking photos one day I may switch back to jpeg - but right now it saves me every now and then.

Kevin

[tirediron]

One further point against .jpg. It's a lossy format, that is: Each time you open, edit and save a .jpg image, you lose a bit of information. If you go back and make a number of edits to the same image as a result of bad planning, or a change of mind, you're going to wind up with a significantly degraded image.

[baddness]

Just a question. When shooting and doing post in RAW, change to 8 bit so that you can save as jpeg, is image quality lost?

[Travis]

Just a question. When shooting and doing post in RAW, change to 8 bit so that you can save as jpeg, is image quality lost?

make all adjustments in the highest bit setting... then bit down when finalizing to jpeg...

[krphotogs]

Just a question. When shooting and doing post in RAW, change to 8 bit so that you can save as jpeg, is image quality lost?

8 bit jpeg represents 256 different colors (2 to the power 8)..... 16 bit tiff is 65K... but you can't print all that.....

Kevin

[Ben H]

My attitude now is that I will shoot raw, especially if I'm likely to be getting something worth keeping (rare, but it happens..!

The only time I will go back to jpeg is if any of the following apply:

- I need to take a huge range of pictures (900 jpeg per 4gig card, versus 200 raw)
- I need to do long continuous burst shooting (my cam does 50+ in jpeg, and about 11 in raw)
- I don't plan on doing any post production and need a very quick output workflow for some reason

Otherwise, it's RAW by default now, even though the workflow, though more painful, gives better control.

[Dwayne Oakes]

It really is just personal preference. Try both and see which one you have
the most fun with and then practice feverishly. I use jpeg and no pp for
all of my work.

http://dwayneoakes.zenfolio.com

Take care Dwayne Oakes