Exercise: RAW

Aim:

The aim of this exercise is to compare and contrast RAW and JPEG files of the same scene. I chose to take some photos on a family outing, shooting highest quality RAW and JPEG files possible by my camera. 

Artificial Light:

RAW Processing in Lightroom:

RAW processed file

RAW histogram showing image exposure settings 

Taken on a bus in a tunnel – the lighting is mixed – from inside the bus and also from lights in the tunnel. I have used ‘Fluro WB’ on the RAW file. The exposure looks good; the histogram fills the centre of the range, and there is some clipping of highlights. I used the highlight slider to recover some of the highlights and the blacks slider to pull out some blacks in the image. I increased clarity slightly (this is a kind of a sharpener for the image), and increased vibrance slightly. I used a ‘medium contrast’ tone curve to give the colours a slight boost in the image. I used quite a high ISO in this image (actually I used ‘auto ISO’ which resulted in a high ISO) so I have applied noise reduction in the luminance channel to this image also. Sharpening (with mask) was applied to this image also.

JPEG Processing in Lightroom:

JPEG processed file

Now there are fewer options with the WB processing. I have used the slider to add a little more yellow (less blue) to the image as I felt it needed to be a little warmer for the skin tones. I did similar recovery of highlights and blacks as with the RAW file. Vibrance, clarity and medium contrast tone curve were all performed in an identical fashion to with the RAW file. Interestingly the noise didn’t seem as bad as in the RAW file, so less noise reduction was applied. Sharpening (with mask) was applied to this image also.

For this exercise there is not a noticible difference between the two images. If I had gotten the WB very wrong, then fixing that in post-processing may be a bit tricky if I only used JPEG. However this example shows that there is little difference in the workflow in Lightroom when processing JPEG or RAW. Even the highlights recovered to a similar degree, though I think they needed more pushing in the JPEG version. The resultant images are quite similar in quality (though admittedly I have not printed them yet).

Daylight:

RAW Processing in Lightroom:

RAW processed file

RAW histogram showing image exposure settings 

This photo was taken at Brisbane’s Southbank, in full sunshine (thus strong shadows). Daylight WB was used for this image. The exposure looks quite good, spread across the whole exposure range, with no clipping of highlights or shadows. I have actually slightly increased the overall exposure a little, and also increased the contrast slider a small amount. There was minimal adjustment to the highlights etc sliders. Medium contrast was applied on the tone curve to help bring attention to the bright colours of the child. No noise reduction was required as the image was taken with ISO 160.

Selective processing for this image included a lighter exposure on the face area which was in shade from the hat. I also decreased the exposure slightly on the palm of the hand and tops of the feet as these were a little too bright. I used the adjustment brush for these changes.

JPEG Processing in Lightroom:

JPEG processed file

The procedure was similar for the RAW file. The image doesn’t appear to have quite the same ‘pop’ as the RAW file, but I can’t pin down exactly why that is – perhaps it is less contrasty to start with so requires a bit more contrast added in the final image to give it the same feel. I added some vibrance to assist with this for the JPEG image. The resultant final images are very similar, with only a few minor differences.

High Dynamic Range:

RAW Processing in Lightroom:

RAW processed file

RAW histogram showing image exposure settings (note this is a processed RAW file so doesn't appear to have any clipping as these have been removed in processing). 

This image was taken at the pool with some bright sky and the hat is overexposed. I used Daylight WB again, and used the highlight, shadows, whites and blacks recovery sliders. This time I learnt that you can click and drag on the histogram to do this, which seems more intuitive to me (and hold down ‘alt’ key to see where the clipping is occurring. This program is very interactive! Next I applied a medium contrast tone curve and visited the ‘presence’ sliders. I slightly increased clarity and vibrance. There is little noise (ISO not too high), so I didn’t apply any noise reduction to this image.

I applied some local processing (using the adjustment brush) over the hat which was a little bright, and a gradient over the sky to darken it slightly.

JPEG Processing in Lightroom:

JPEG processed file

I kept the WB the same as was shot for this image (Daylight), and once again applied the recovery sliders. As with the ‘daylight’ image above, there is not quite the same ‘pop’ as with the RAW file. There is quite a noticeable difference in the colour of the sky in these two images!

Conclusion: 

It’s hard to judge the dynamic range of the two images, but the JPEG does seem slightly harder to get a ‘good’ image out of compared with the RAW file. The RAW file seemed more amenable to tweaking to produce successful images. There are slight differences in WB and colour in all three pairs of images, but not to the detriment of the JPEGS mostly – the main advantage in this case to shooting RAW is if you get it totally wrong then it’s easy to fix in post-processing, compared with the JPEG where it is a bit harder (sliders are needed, or layers in Photoshop). Local adjustments can be applied to both the JPEG and RAW files in Lightroom, and there is no discernible difference between the two at the scale I am looking at. Interestingly with the high ISO pair of images, the noise seemed different between the JPEG and RAW, which I would not have expected. Overall, the JPEGs are easy to process, but without quite the same degree of options for recovery or WB adjustment. For the HDR scene, the RAW file is quite a bit easier to process, though the resultant final images appear quite similar. I think there is probably more ‘depth’ of colours in the RAW file, particularly in the HDR file than in the JPEG.

Learnings: 

Well I will continue to always shoot the highest quality RAW, but am now going to stop shooting high quality JPEG, instead either turning it completely off, or just shooting a small file which I could use for quick emailing if required (not that I do any professional work at the moment!). The more I ‘play’ with Lightroom, the more I realise can be done with images, so I should take an opportunity soon to step back and review some older images and possibly print them for a portfolio or simply for my record. I realise that I’ll be using Photoshop for less day-to-day work now that I continue to learn more about Lightroom.