Seattle, WA: Local photographer Wyatt Jones recently decided to switch from shooting in raw to JPEG format in an effort to spend less time editing images. However, he soon discovered he was spending even more time explaining his decision to horrified fellow photographers who were developing negative opinions.
"I figured JPEGs would be quicker - just shoot and share!" said Jones. "But when I told my camera club friends, you'd think I just kicked a puppy. They kept asking if I had gone insane."
Outraged photographers immediately began cropping up, inundating Jones with reasons he must shoot raw: white balance adjustments, exposure recovery, the ability to re-edit years later, and most importantly, better shadow recovery.
"Eric went on a 15-minute diatribe about how shooting JPEG was 'destroying your creative potential'," said Jones. "He said I may as well just be shooting on a Polaroid. But they're my family photos, not the next Avengers movie!"
The pleas to switch back to raw fell on deaf ears. Later, Jones proudly posted a JPEG photo to his photography forum titled "The Raw Truth." He hoped his unprocessed image would develop into an interesting discussion.
The horrified responses poured in, critiquing the color, noise, and lack of flexibility. "This would have been easily adjustable if you had the raw file," remarked one commenter. "I could have recovered at least 2-3 stops of shadows from the raw data," contributed another. "Your children must be so ashamed to be in this picture," said one particularly rude commenter.
After spending four hours defending his artistic choice, Jones finally admitted that perhaps he had acted in haste. The next day, he sheepishly swapped his camera settings back to raw, hoping to regain positive exposure among his peers.
But the photography club was still fuming over the debut of Jones' undeveloped JPEG image. They asked him to resign as President and charitably offered to only reduce his membership level from Gold to Silver status.
"It's like they had a personal vendetta just because I shot one lousy photo without raw," complained Jones. "I thought artists were supposed to be open-minded!"
When reached for comment, Jones said only: "Next time, I'll just hire an editor to handle all the developing drama."
Sounds like you need a bigger NAS. :P
Indeed I do. I can't seem to purge old files just like old t-shirts.
I read the article and then the comments so funny! When you buy a camera you get so many things a couple is the edit by the camera yes the Jpeg on a Sony you have DRO "Dynamic Range Optimizer" with auto or five different settings most impossible to get in a raw image. Other settings effect just jpeg but be warned the image you see on the camera screen is the jpeg like the histogram represents the jpeg image the histogram you rely on so much!! Ah! Also would you also condemn using Auto mode that you also get both RAW and Jpeg and on a Sony a two level auto. Lest we forget in the first two mod's of Sony A7's there were on camera apps yes most gave both RAW and Jpeg like "Digital Filter" where you can select any and all possible camera settings in three image areas. I use on the A7Sii to capture Milky Way's over bright sky glow of towns/cities or also getting milky waterfalls/streams/ surf without carrying filters and holders in my bag, still do and is that cheating. Many will say only Manual mode is the skill to have but 98% of all are done in aperture mode by many and PRO's.
The camera is a tool with many uses and the way used is never on a print maybe in a digital image but really who cares if it sells! 1. camera app, 2. using an APS-C lens in full frame mode to get a perfect 12mm image three years before a 12mm lens 3. is it also bad to use bracketing called HDR to get more dynamic range.
May one ask how many have read a book vs the paper that comes with on the camera?
Such transgressions are simply unforgivable. He should've been forced to forever shoot from an iPhone.
If this story is true, it is kind of sad and the other club members need to get over themselves. Yes, there are advantages to using raw but if I wanted to shoot jpeg and someone started telling me to shoot raw, I would tell them where to go because it is none of their business.
If he hadn't said anything, most of the naysayers wouldn't have noticed.
You should have seen their faces when he told them that his Adobe subscription ran out.
As a photographer I am judged by my pictures, the process is my business and my business alone, many "techies" who have been informed that images were created from an in camera JPEG will be so concerned looking for any JPEG artefacts that they will fail to see the picture.
In my view the words must, never, always, can't, should, shouldn’t and don't should be avoided like the covid in a creative genre and those who spout such words also avoided wherever possible.
Absorb what is useful.
I would not want to belong to a club that had members like that!
What utter nonsense!
A while back, several pros published comparisons from their own work, of pairs of shots taken at the same time - identical photos! - except one of each pair was a RAW fil and one of each was a JPEG. Their conclusion - sometimes RAW is better, sometimes JPEG is better and the BIGGEST sector was where there was absolutely no difference!
So I thought I'd try it - did a hundred shots - and over half were indistinguishable, but out of the rest of them roughly half were better as RAW files, and half as JPEGS. In other words, less than a quarter of the total were better as either one format or the other.
But to drum someone out of their stupid club over a difference of opinion on an issue like that is pure bloody minded crap.
Bruh. It's satire. A joke.