DSLR newby

[EnglishLes]

I'm not sure that that comparing RAW & JPEG on an A4 print or a computer screen will show any difference. You might need to go to A1 and then use a magnifying glass to notice anything assuming your JPEG is 4 or megabytes.

I think the real benefit is when you want to adjust things like contrast, brightness, hue or sharpen/blur the image. These can be done relatively easily in the S/W supplied with the camera rather than trying to use Photoshop etc.

I have never actually done anything in RAW, this is just my understanding of what can be done with it.

[NeilH]

The advantage of shooting in RAW - as I understand it - is that you get everything as it comes off the camera sensor which you can then manipulate. When you edit the RAW image (in whatever software you wish) it is non destructive so you can always get back to the original - with jpeg any editing changes the image and can't be retrieved. JPEGs are also compressed by the camera so it has already made some (probably very sensible!) decisions on your behalf.

I don't think it is a case of comparing RAW vs JPEGs for sharpness - you will always have to convert the image to a jpeg to use it.

Main disadvantage is the file size and having to convert them

Ultimately it depends on what you are trying to achieve. As others have said the key is to take a good photo in the first place - having used film you will already understand this.

Cheers
Neil

[Ian_st]

With my Nikon, I use both SDHC card and compact flash card and send the raw files to one and jpegs to the other. It keeps it as a backup and easy to store files together.

I use photoshop for editing but for 99% of photos jpegs are fine.

[Hightower]

Originally Posted by TonyC

or GIMP which is a free open-source alternative to photoshop

Thanks for the heads up Tony, I uploaded it last night and have had a play. It looks as though it'll do all I need it to for the foreseeable future. Just have to start leaning how to use it properly. There seems to be a few tutorials on you tube about how to do some stuff.

I've set my camera to RAW fine and JPEG with no noticeable loss in performance. On continuous shutter it seems to take about 7 shots before the buffer is full up using both formats.