What exactly is happening to a Raw photo when it becomes a JPEG and what about Raw photos are so preferable for photo editing
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A raw photo is like a raw cooking ingredient: it isn’t enjoyable as it is, but it can become infinite kinds of other, more enjoyable things if you cook it properly.
* If you’re a pro chef, you will prefer raw ingredients because you have the skill and patience to turn them into something nice. This means more effort is required, but you get to make the meal exactly the way you like.
* If you’re a consumer, you just want to eat something nice without much effort. So you’ll prefer the ingredients to be cooked and prepared for you. This means you can’t choose how exactly the ingredients will be prepared, but you don’t mind.
* However, if as a consumer, you are given a cooked, prepared meal and want to alter it, you will find that pretty difficult because you can’t “uncook” it.
In technical terms, this means that a raw photo is unprocessed, it contains all the data that came out of the sensor. Like a block of marble before being sculpted. Once you process it, you remove information to shape it to your liking, like sculpting and carving the marble. It gets improved in the process, but it can also get ruined, and once these decisions are made, there’s no going back (you can’t turn a black and white JPEG back into a color photo).
A raw photo is like a raw cooking ingredient: it isn’t enjoyable as it is, but it can become infinite kinds of other, more enjoyable things if you cook it properly.
* If you’re a pro chef, you will prefer raw ingredients because you have the skill and patience to turn them into something nice. This means more effort is required, but you get to make the meal exactly the way you like.
* If you’re a consumer, you just want to eat something nice without much effort. So you’ll prefer the ingredients to be cooked and prepared for you. This means you can’t choose how exactly the ingredients will be prepared, but you don’t mind.
* However, if as a consumer, you are given a cooked, prepared meal and want to alter it, you will find that pretty difficult because you can’t “uncook” it.
In technical terms, this means that a raw photo is unprocessed, it contains all the data that came out of the sensor. Like a block of marble before being sculpted. Once you process it, you remove information to shape it to your liking, like sculpting and carving the marble. It gets improved in the process, but it can also get ruined, and once these decisions are made, there’s no going back (you can’t turn a black and white JPEG back into a color photo).
A RAW file isn’t even an image per se. It is all the data your device is capable of recording, which is ideal for editing. Any picture you may see from a RAW file is just a preview of the data, in the form of a visible image.
So the JPEG your device produces is just the manufacturer’s best guess, but if you edit your own RAW data you can export another JPEG that is closer to what you were trying to achieve.
A RAW file isn’t even an image per se. It is all the data your device is capable of recording, which is ideal for editing. Any picture you may see from a RAW file is just a preview of the data, in the form of a visible image.
So the JPEG your device produces is just the manufacturer’s best guess, but if you edit your own RAW data you can export another JPEG that is closer to what you were trying to achieve.
A RAW file isn’t even an image per se. It is all the data your device is capable of recording, which is ideal for editing. Any picture you may see from a RAW file is just a preview of the data, in the form of a visible image.
So the JPEG your device produces is just the manufacturer’s best guess, but if you edit your own RAW data you can export another JPEG that is closer to what you were trying to achieve.
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.
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.
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.
The simplest explanation is that a JPEG is an image, where every pixel’s color and brightness is defined. A Raw photo is not an image, per se, it’s a file that contains all the data collected by the camera. You can then take that data and turn it into a JPEG by selecting how you want to render that data, so it’s infinitely flexible, whereas a JPEG is already an image where those decisions have been made (either automatically by the camera or by a user during editing).
The simplest explanation is that a JPEG is an image, where every pixel’s color and brightness is defined. A Raw photo is not an image, per se, it’s a file that contains all the data collected by the camera. You can then take that data and turn it into a JPEG by selecting how you want to render that data, so it’s infinitely flexible, whereas a JPEG is already an image where those decisions have been made (either automatically by the camera or by a user during editing).
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