Hi Terry,


For much of what I see on the web, it makes no difference. For small prints, it will make little difference. For folk who do not want to get into icc profiling (or get it wrong ) the jpeg will give a good enough result. If you are happy with default settings for your raw software, or with the limited adjustments in some varieties of  raw converters, then there may be little advantage to shooting in raw. In any case, a jpeg is, as in this case, a useful check.

A bit of a story here...

I recently bought a Sigma dp1s camera. A decision based on what I had read about the Fovean sensor, and Mike's excellent articles on the Sigma dslr, and the important fact that it seemed a reasonable price for a camera with an almost aps-c sized sensor in a small body. However, before I purchased, I wanted to see how the raw files 'looked'. I found a blog with some Sigma raw file downloads. Unfortunately, many raw processors (including Qimage) does not handle the dp1/2 raw files. I downloaded the Fastone viewer, and got some impressive images. I cropped a section, saved as a tif, used qimage to upsize by about ten times, printed on canvas, thought 'twer amazing.

Then, talking to someone re. my thinking that Fastone, which like many (including Qimage) use dcraw, why did Fastone handle raw files, but not Irfanview, Qimage and others? Oops, I had Fastone set to handle the embedded jpeg. Even the small embedded jpeg  - was excellent. Using the Sigma software, on the raw file is something else again.

At the end of the day, it depends on what you want to do. I tend to work on a single image, tweaking this that and the other, to get it to where I want it - although I often give up before I get there. I want the controls that I am familiar with and a raw file, and I'm not wanting necessarily the default of the camera, or the software. These days the camera makers are building in some of these controls in the jpeg processing in camera (modes, white bal, etc.). I have no problem in that many folk want this, and suits their needs (although for me it adds clutter to the camera). In the same way, I expect some folk do not want raw images, either.

Returning to the OP's image - the embedded jpeg was as good as the other images, (at least on my screen), as good as, or maybe better than the Qimage raw default development, with or without a wrong custom profile. I expect, in blind testing e.g. you did not know the processing involved, it would be hard to decide just by looking at someone's images. That is not the same as looking at your own images.

Each to his own. fwiw, Fastone opens Olympus raw files, most cameras, pretty darn quick (but doesn't open the dp1/2 raws), but then it is an image viewer, designed to view files. Although it does more, it does not try too hard to be an image editor or printer.

Best wishes,

Ray

Hi Terry,

I agree with you wrt the benefits to you and me and many others in shooting raw, but in all honesty, looking at the image that Dennis posted, (which I don't think was tricky to develop), I am not able to see which is 'better', the jpeg, or a raw default settings processed one, although colours/sharpening/size/etc. will be different. However, If I wanted to work on any image then I would use a raw file if possible as the starting point, and my favourite software, and hopefully convert it into an image that I thought was better than any other, but my main concern would be in producing a largish print, one to be looked at and perhaps studied, not an 800 by 600 pixel image for the web. Broadly speaking, using any software raw processor default settings is only doing what is done in camera to produce its jpegs - in other words you are relying on someone else's ideas of what the image should look like - a bit like getting your films developed and printed by the usual high street places.

The beauty of the digital image, for many of us, is the fact that we can turn a photograph, a mere record of an event, into an image with some artistic merit (at least in our own eyes, if nobody else's  ) . There are plenty of examples of stunning work produced from images taken on mobile phones and p&s cameras, even by folk with no idea about icc colour profiles, raw files, or basic camera functions. It is more to do with the artist in the photographer than the technicalities of the camera/raw processing.

For those folk of 600 years or so ago, who used to paint walls using tempera colours, I wonder if they discussed if the brown or white shelled eggs gave the best medium?

Best wishes,

Ray

Hi Terry,

I don't think we are disagreeing in the basics wrt what _we_ do. However, many folk get what _they_ want by doing something different. Although this is basically a technical forum concerning qimage, I think it would be foolish to disregard other concepts.

fwiw, I think your embedded jpeg is based on the settings that you applied to the camera. If you had shot the scene using the Canon inbuilt fail safe jpeg mode (what I call 'the magic green square'), you may well have been surprised by the result, and for many folk that result may have been good enough. If I am that concerned, for really high contrast subjects, then I exposure bracket, and combine the images using the Mertens-Kautz-Van Reeth exposure fusion algorithm*.

Best wishes,

Ray

" try http://enblend.sourceforge.net/index.htm