What exactly is happening to a Raw photo when it becomes a JPEG and what about Raw photos are so preferable for photo editing

Question

What exactly is happening to a Raw photo when it becomes a JPEG and what about Raw photos are so preferable for photo editing

In: 239

Answer 1

The real answer is that raw images have a lot more information and that lets you produce more output.

Others have talked about dynamic range. Jpeg uses 8 bits, or 256 possible values for each color. Camera sensors support many more values – up to 14 bits, or 16636 possible values, or more. That means there are many more possible values than jpeg.

That difference means it is possible to make adjustments to the raw image when you are converting it to a jpeg.

Here’s an example

https://lightroomkillertips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Fig11_LR2-1024×576.jpg

This is using a program called Lightroom. The picture on the left is the initial one. It’s too dark in the foreground, too light in the sky, and the colors aren’t very vivid.

The picture on the right uses the information that the sensor captured but didn’t make it into the left view. The foreground is lightened, the sky is darkened a bit, and the colors are adjusted to be nicer.

So the short answer to your question is that if you have a program like Lightroom and you shoot in raw format, you can get much better results. With a few exceptions, pretty much every pro image you see has had that treatment.