JPEG or RAW

[FFD941 20]

Looking to find everyones opinion on shooting in RAW format vs. JPEG?

I know that when it comes to editing and enlarging RAW is the way to go but, does it work for fire scenes??

[mfc442 3]

Personaly, I prefer to shoot in RAW. Not that there is any real problem shooting in JPEG, more a personal pref., but I generaly do not shoot fire scene. After editing anything I want to, I will save it as JPEG on my computer BUT keep the orignal RAW file as well. As for a fire scean, I dont see any reason to shoot one over the other (again, perfer raw), I think its more a matter of personal preferences and what you are confertable doing.

[snkbitn 2]

If you are shooting pictures and planning to resize them RAW is better (its raw data)

If you are planning on leaving the size of the picture JPEG is fine the data is compressed (smaller file size)

[firesleuth 0]

Personal preference is always your number one consideration. Equipment is another factor: The RAW files are so much bigger than the JPEG files. If you have memory capacity, shoot RAW. If not, settle for the compressed photos-JPEG. Also, with JPEG, the photo is ready to use, post, email, etc. With RAW you're gonna need to do some processing in your computer. You can do an enormous amount of creative work with a photo processing program (Adobe Photoshop a good example) such as color correcting, cropping, enhancements, overlaying with other photos, all kinds of special effects, etc. Remember, with JPEG, your picture information is compressed right there in your camera and lots of information (ie pixels) are lost and can never be retrieved. The compression process will produce an acceptable photo but some quality factors are lost. RAW gives you everything that the camera caught using all of it's design capabilities and limitations. You can make the decision on what to do with all that infomation when you process it in you computer. Some camera allow you to shoot RAW and compressed at the same time and save both photos at the same time. The best of both worlds! --memory permitting.

[abaduck 123]

Looking to find everyones opinion on shooting in RAW format vs. JPEG?

I know that when it comes to editing and enlarging RAW is the way to go but, does it work for fire scenes??

RAW always, for any scene. The amount of rescue work you can do (correcting under/over exposure, colour etc.) when you have RAW data to work with is amazing, vs. JPEG. The only reason to shoot JPEG is if you are seriously constrained on memory capacity, and with memory as cheap as it is now that excuse should seldom or never arise.

The files do get big tho - RAW files from my Kodak DCS Pro SLR/n are 14-15MB per image.

My tip of the week: run, don't walk, to these people and buy a copy of Noiseware Pro: http://www.imagenomic.com/

You won't believe how useful it is until you try it.

Mike

Edited December 7, 2007 by abaduck

[DOC22 1]

Personaly, I prefer to shoot in RAW. Not that there is any real problem shooting in JPEG, more a personal pref., but I generaly do not shoot fire scene. After editing anything I want to, I will save it as JPEG on my computer BUT keep the orignal RAW file as well. As for a fire scean, I dont see any reason to shoot one over the other (again, perfer raw), I think its more a matter of personal preferences and what you are confertable doing.

How do you convert from raw to jpeg? We had a car fire drill tonight, I took a bunch of pix in raw, and Photoshop can't even read them???

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Chris