JPG vs RAW vs DNG

astoner — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:19:52 +0000

I just finished an interesting article describing the differences in shooting between JPG and RAW files which gives the pros and cons of each type. I actually decided soon after I got a camera that could shoot in RAW, that it was the way I wanted to do most of my shooting. I like the fact that all the data is stored and so much manipulation can be done after the fact if the data is there. With JPG so much information is lost as well as introducing artifacting I just don’t use it until the final step of editting.

I use Photoshop Elements currently as my editing tool which does everything I need right now. Although I would like to move up to a higher end product at some point. Elements does have the ablity to export lots of files to various file formats, like LightRoom, which is nice. I can do all my editing then just go to organizer and select all the finished photos and export them to JPG files. The ability of LightRoom to apply standard edits to groups of files would be real nice. I don’t do big enough batches right now to warrent something like that but as I increase my microstock shooting I can see the appeal.

The digital negative format is nice for longevity of the file format. I can understand the desire for something like this but don’t see a lot of photographers adobting it in a hurry. It’s just an extra step required in most post processes that people probably wont do. Now if/when Nikon or Canon, etc comes out and says they’re dropping support for a particular RAW format there may be a rush of people converting files to it. I know I’ll be looking into it if/when I see waning support for the Nikon D80 RAW format from Nikon and/or Adobe.

I don’t know if any cameras save straight to the DNG format yet or not. Not sure if camera makers would really want to do that, their proprietary RAW formats are one of the things that seperate them from on another. It still would be a nice option.

Allen

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JPG vs RAW vs DNG