There are endless articles and videos discussing the pros and cons of shooting in raw versus shooting in JPEG. I’ve long been a proponent of raw for the editing capabilities, but what's more important than file sizes and editing? Longevity.
It’s helpful to point out here that I very often can’t see the forest for the trees, so this may not be such a revelation to others. To briefly recap, shooting in raw captures the most amount of information in each shot, which allows the maximum amount of manipulation in post — essentially the digital version of a film negative. JPEG offers significantly reduced file sizes and speed of use but also reduces the post-processing advantages to just minor adjustments. That’s a broad overview, because there are multiple levels to this discussion. This is not meant to rehash all of them, but simply add a point to the pros of the raw argument.
I was reviewing some past work recently and came across a portrait that I loved from over five years ago, but I decided I should revisit the edit. I’ve been retouching for more than a decade, so I wasn’t thinking this would be a major overhaul but rather a quick update. And for the most part, I was right. My eye is better adjusted to more subtle retouching, so the results were more relaxed than the original.
But this got me thinking about the age-old discussion (raging debate?) about shooting in raw or JPEG and which one is better. I’ve been doing this long enough to believe that professionals choose which one works best for them and their clients, but when you’re just starting out, this is can seem like a major dilemma. Not only is there the added file size, but it’s a level of complexity that may be overwhelming to a new shooter.
Rarely in this back and forth is the discussion of longevity or as some will call it, future-proofing. Side note: I prefer the former because, to my ear, this is about your career and legacy, so the language used is important. Yes, it has a utilitarian aspect, but longevity is about maintaining presence over years, and future-proofing sounds like my roof has the proper rain sealant applied.
My career started in the digital world, so I don’t have a background in film. As such, I’m just used to being able to go back to an image from whenever and decide if I still like the final version or not. If not, I can make changes and re-save it. As I said before, this is not an Einstein-level revelation about photography. I also acknowledge this is heresy to some that view the original edit as the purest form. But I'm a mad scientist when it comes to creativity, with a tendency to see rules as more like guidelines.
Here’s the thing, though: I think this is one of the strongest arguments for shooting raw for a new photographer than anything else. The list of technical advantages is helpful, but telling a new photographer to shoot in a file format that will allow them to improve the photos they're taking now in five years is a much more compelling reason. There are times this won’t apply, of course, published work being one. However, how fantastic is it to know that you have a safety net in such a technically challenging career?
Why would you want to look at work you shot years ago? I've been shooting headshots for the better part of a decade, and there are some images that are milestones for me, so I want to keep them in my portfolio. But as I improve with my retouching or maybe I update my monitor to one that has better resolution and color, I want to go back and adjust those specific images to keep them current. If all I had were JPEGs, this would be very limited but since I've shot in raw from almost the beginning, I have this option.
Now, a bad photo is just that, and a professional should never rely solely on the post-processing to save their work. Getting it right in camera is the gold standard, and we should always strive to improve. Still, having that extra layer of flexibility for the future is fantastic.
So, buy that larger SSD and figure out Camera Raw in Photoshop now. Your future self will feel a lot smarter.
This is dead right on. I've been shooting raw for only the past 4-5 years. But I have decades of JPEGs I wish I could have more flexibility in editing. My only slight disagreement is that I'd allow a rank beginner to start in JPEG because it's so much easier and there's so much else to learn. But once you've got the basics, go to raw.
Good point. For a beginner who wants instant gratification and camera craft aka "getting it right in camera", jpegs are ideal. Combine this with a simple DAM such as Apple Photos which can perform light edits and they'll be more than happy for some time.
Raw on the other hand requires more work and planning that a beginner may not want to think about from the start. Which editor to use, for example, is a commitment in itself, not to mention a huge rabbit hole.
That said, I'm still learning and go back to old photos to reprocess as I learn new things, both jpeg and raw files. There are a few times I wished I had shot raw back then but it's not the end of the world.
Yup, definite trade offs but when I coach a new shooter I lean towards raw because I want them to play the long game. They'll figure it out in the end. ;0)
Can't most modern cameras do both at the same time? I'd defo tell a beginner to use both at the same time. I took some shots in my first year of photography that I'd certainly like to re-edit, and thankfully I started with RAW so they're all on a HDD waiting for a rainy Sunday.
Another reason I shoot RAW is that Capture One keeps getting better and the amount of stuff you can do with older files is pretty neat.
Yes! This is another great great argument for RAW. The software today is lightyears ahead of just 3-4 years ago. Plus the processing power now avaialble.
Why is this a huge dilemma for newbies? Every camera I've owned can shoot raw and JPG, at the same time. You get the best of both worlds. As far as storage goes, this is a moot point; you can pick up 2 terabyte hard drives on eBay for $35. If you can't afford that then you shouldn't be tinkering with a hobby that (typically) requires thousands of dollars in equipment. That is to say, if you can't afford $35, you should sell your camera and wait until you're more financially stable.
Well...when you have twice the normal amount of files, organization would become kinda agonizing, especially when you accidentally delete photos (happened to me...).
I would chew through 2TB so fast. And that's with an EOS R. I pity the 5DS shooters. I'm feeling the pinch with 24TB right now.
Also, $35 will get you a basic hard drive, but if you run a business or are a serious hobbyist, you'll likely want to drop some money on some sort of NAS unit, and the price there can escalate quickly.
Don’t feel sorry for us 5DS shooters (I have two). Storage is the least of my worries because it is so cheap. Since I stopped shooting film in 2013, I have only ever shot raw. When I take a new camera out of the box, the first thing I do is set it to raw. In the 8 years that I’ve used a DSLR, I have never put a .jpg through the cameras. I had a digital point and shoot camera early on and I still regret initially shooting .jpgs. Processing and printing raw files is just an electronic way of doing what I did chemically in the wet darkroom. I even shoot raw on my iPhone 12.
This is where I'm at. As much as I want to save everything, culling files is necessary and storage solutions start to become financial considerations for my hobby / side hustle. Can't imagine what it's like for fulltime pros and videographers.
Full time pros are getting paid, storage is a business expense. Maybe finding space to store the drives might become an issue at some point, but your fees should definitely be covering your costs.
A few years back I was asked to teach some basic photographic concepts to a group of photographic sales staff .I soon came to realize that many people don't really understand the differences between Raw and JPEG even when being presented with an A/B comparison . A JPEG image can sometimes have the effect of looking more striking (sharper) because of the restricted tonal range which still offers white and black but less in between the two .The idea of 4.3 trillion colors in a14 bit RAW file is hard to get your head around but compared to 16.8 million in JPEG files it is a huge difference . Most of the older Fuji digital DSLR's had a preference for enhanced JPEG's straight out of the camera , the term was Interpolation and it was a way of giving enhanced JPEG's - Fuji style !
A RAW file gives you all the information Rhett was captured when taking the imagema jpeg is compressed because it throws away the information it devices isn't needed! Tastes and ability changes over time and the way you envisage an image today will likely be different in five years time because you will have improved your processing skills and most likely the software will have improved as well!
Even back in the film days the way an image was printed changed over time. You only have to look at Ansel Adams Moonrise over Hernandez and compare early prints with the latter ones to see that Adams saw it differently over time!
If you only have a jpeg you are limited!
How about an article about the rarely discussed reason to shoot JPEG because I feel that unless you are a professional photographer today's cameras can give exceptional results in JPEG
I shoot raw so I can apply my own preset to my photo’s and to be able to recover data when I’ve shot in less than ideal light.
Yep, wholeheartedly agree. Being able to revisit DNGs taken 10 years ago, when technology and my skill were markedly less advanced, and being able to improve on them as if they were done with newer gear (or by a better photographer/retoucher) is really something special. (But how would JPEG shooters know?) Looking back, my decision to shoot almost exclusively RAW from the beginning of digital must have been one of the soundest of my whole photographic journey so far.
Storage has become so cheap to buy as well as SSD options , why skimp on file size when you may regret losing some of the highlight and shadow detail .In Australia we have some of the harshest light on the planet and I am very aware that dynamic range is more important than in some other global hemisphere .I only use the RAW file even when I shot both , because of the detail , not sharpness .
Shoot raw of course... That said, I wish more cameras allowed you to tweak the jpeg engine like Fujifilm cameras do. I would love to set my camera to raw+jpeg and try and get my settings dialed in-camera for faster turn around, even if only for casual sharing. The jpegs out of my canon almost always need tweaking (IMHO) and thus I never feel like I can use them.
I was an early user of Fujifilm dslr's when digital first arrived on the scene , had weddings and corporate jobs to shoot but the RAW option was not great as the buffer took forever to clear and slow to read and write to the card .Now why bother with JPEG as so much more is available in RAW as well as speed . I had issues with FUJI in Australia as they were not interested in RAW files in the DSLR market , only Fuji enhanced JPEG images for all of the wedding portrait shooters .Things have changed I'm sure but moved to Nikon so Fuji lost me -- sold all of my Fuji camera's 6x17 and 6x9 as well as digital
When I was first looking at the digital photo world in the late 90's the important feature one looked for was TIFF file saves in cameras. Many were JPG only.
When Kodak came out with RAW I immediately realized that was the way I wanted to go.
As a long time film printer, I saw the importance of having the "neg" to return to over and over again.
I have scanned a number of my favorite negatives (in RAW) and re-work my processing to match the ideas I have today. I don't have quite the exposure range that I did with an enlarger but I can re-scan so that any exposure works well.
Glad that you mentioned Tiff files, and they can be viewed without conversion software . More common in Digital camera's going back to early inception and scanners .16 bit TIFF file options now you are talking incredibly large file sizes .I had a Nikon D2hs and I am pretty sure it had TIFF conversion in the camera to make up for small megapixel output ,.beautiful colour and tone .
If the author is simply talking about keeping our own files in our own archives, we can certainly store them in any format we want and hope those formats will be supported five or 10 years hence. If the issues are file sustainability, portability and interchange well into the foreseeable future (20 years, 50 years or more) then it would probably be wise to follow the recommendations of the National Archive and Records Administration of the United States (and almost every other national archive) which recommends (and accepts) only JPEG, TIFF (5 or 6) or PDF formats. Information from The Library of Congress regarding file sustainability, portability and interchange indicates they find all image-raw files "acceptable but not recommended". The most highly recommended formats are, like NARA, JPEG and TIFF. The only image-raw file that is recommended by the LOC is the DNG. These recommendations are based on standardization of the format, public access to the formatting information and general public acceptance of the formats,
Spot on, I recently was asked to provide an image I took 15 years ago to a big gallery for an exhibition they were curating. I went back to the raw file & re processed. I was quite amazed at how much better the final images looked using the later versions of the editing programs . Cleaner colors, sharper, better noise reduction. All this and was much quicker to process. Not to mention the newer add ons you can buy for the edit programs that allow you to finesse the image. Glad I always have shot raw
Well spoken. I shoot both, Leica allows you to simultaneously save to both, so I have a JPEG handy for email and RAW for editing. All photographers should shoot in RAW even if they feel the editing process is beyond their skill set. There are literal thousands of computer savvy people out there willing to help. I had a photo that I didn't know how to fix/remove an unwanted reflection. I posted on a local forum and had a dozen offers to fix it for me for free. After the free edit, I had a large aluminum print made and it looks beautiful.
It's not just Leica that allows you to shoot both RAW and jpeg simultaneously. I think every brand allows you to do that. In fact, I have never even heard of a DSLR or full frame mirrorless camera that doesn't facilitate that. I believe that the vast majority of photographers shoot RAW + jpeg as their default method almost all of the time. It's certainly nothing specific to Leica.
I shoot stock wildlife images on spec, so I am continually going back into my image archives from years ago and re-editing my older files for submission or re-submission to publishers and stock agencies. So your point about shooting RAW for longevity is something that is right on the money for me and what I shoot and for the way I market my images.
If one's reasoning for shooting jpg only is no to little editing, raw is a one-stop-shop. Using the camera manufacturer's native software, you can export the raw to jpg to look like as it were shot out of camera in jpg. You can still make changes before export.
So, if one were to shoot 500 images. Select let's say select 20, export to jpg, done. You'd still have the added benefit/security of having the raw files in case you need/want to go back to them later on.
I know Sony has this, and 99% sure Canon and Nikon does also. Not sure about the others.
You have reminded me of some of the camera manufacturers supplied or suggested RAW file convertors .When I used Nikon the Capture NX and NX2 looked great when any NEF file was used and the NEF files in ACDSEE and probably LR ,PS will look very different without having any profiles or presets .So this may be a major obstacle particurely if you use different camera's .I use Pentax and the DNG output is slightly different than the PEF files of the same image in ACDSEE.