Imagine the following situation: you are going to buy a camera, such as the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ60 camera for example, then as a curious person, you move here, you move there and discover that it has two formats so that you can record your photos What are: JPEG or RAW, then which one to choose?
Since practice is the test of the truth, you start taking pictures, one in each format, to see which one is better. This way, you will find that JPEG allows your 2GB card to hold around 400 photos, while RAW only guarantees you 100.
- At first.
- The conclusion is obvious: RAW is better.
- But is it really?Well.
- That’s what we’ll see in this article.
First, before making a fair trial, we need to analyze both sides of the story. Therefore, it is fair to mention the fact that the term “JPEG” stands for “Joint Group of Photographic Experts”, which means that JPEG is not really the name of the file, but rather the committee that developed this file standard.
In other words, the actual JPEG format is JFIF as well: JPEG file sharing format. But, among us, it would be very boring to repeat, therefore, the popular?JPEG file?ended up taking more than a 7-word streak!
Well now going one step further on JPEG, it’s important to say that the committee of the same name that created it, made it become a lossy data compression method, after all. the algorithm used for this is based on DCT (Discrete Cosine Transformation).
The DCT system does the job, precisely, of deleting some data that is not as important in photos; in short, to eliminate those things that go unnoticed by humans. But, if you’re a format lover, you can be sure that no one has stayed out of your photos!
The algorithm only excludes certain data such as small artifacts and sometimes even excessive spots or highlights, and if the image is in JPEG format, you can be sure that every time your photo is edited and saved, there will be data loss .
As for RAW, his name literally means “raw”. Is it because he?Format? RAW saves the photos without any changes, for the most?Crude?possible. And that’s precisely why the photos in this type of file weigh up to 5 times more than a JPEG.
Many cameras today offer a new kind of RAW, which one? according to the manufacturers? it follows a JPEG style, but without data loss. That is, it manages to reduce the size of the image considerably, but “without loss”.
Of course, there are losses. But they end up being less visible than the losses caused by the original JPEG, which can be a good compromise when choosing between JPEG or RAW.
Well, so far everything’s fine. But, if you’re an attentive reader, you’ve probably noticed that when I said formatting, I put it in quotes. In fact, RAW is not a format, but a kind of digital negative. In other words, each manufacturer has its own RAW format, which is used to say “this is the photo without any retouching, this is the raw photo”.
If you work with photography or are passionate, you probably know that the quality of photography depends on dozens of factors that, combined, achieve your goal of being literally a success!Therefore, we will divide this dispute among the most important issues. for a photo taken with excellence.
The creation of the image is of fundamental importance, therefore we need to analyze the quality accurately, to know if it is worth using JPEG or RAW. Well, the results are very interesting and surprising, because the image creation process, in the case of JPEG, is much more developed and studied than its “competitor”.
After all, it works like this: when you click, the digital camera will process the photo data according to the pre-installed settings, create the file in the internal memory with these settings, and then transfer it to the memory card.
In this process, the image is saved in its “final state” on your memory card. In this way, little or no post-production work will be required, since the photo will already have contrast, sharpness, brightness and in addition to a considerably good quality.
The boring part of this? It is in the fact that its editing range is much smaller, after all, the data lost when you save the image as jpeg cannot be recovered.
In RAW format, the situation changes color (literally). Because, when you right-click, the image information is saved exactly as saved in the case of JPEG, the difference will appear when you take these photos from the camera.
Then, when you open the image in an editor or corridor, the color settings, sharpness, etc. will be reset, so that it will conform to the tool’s standards. In this way, as soon as you open the image in a program, you will be able to observe it for a few seconds,?Nice, like when you play.
However, it is soon updated with the program’s settings, turning gray and guaranteeing you good hours in front of the PC, to repair and leave everything as you want!
Well, this way we can only come to a conclusion: if you don’t have much time and are not ready to spend hours in front of the PC organizing photos here and there, without a doubt, the best option to be jpeg format, since it hardly requires it.
But, as said at the beginning of the article, we cannot rely on just one thing to define a winner, in photo processing, so don’t miss next Sunday’s articles, which will cover these two formats and which is the best option. . .
Next Sunday, JPEG vs RAW: Dynamic Range!