WHY YOU NEED A PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER FOR THAT EVENT YOU ARE PLANNING

 When most people write budget for their events, they simply don't have plan for photography. This is not because they don't value or appreciate good quality images but the fact is that they want quality pictures on the cheap. "Photography is the only record you can take from an event". For this reason it has to be well handled by a professional. Nowadays, many advertising companies buy cameras for their staff who are unprofessional to camouflage as professional photographer for events - and guess what? They'll make you pay professional for that! Your event budget may be one million dollars and more but if its photography is not well taken care of, it simply means that the event ended with nothing tangible to show for it. I.e., Your expensive champagne, luxury hall, beautiful cake, $5000 suit, your lovely moments, friends and well-wishers can only be remembered in a picture. And how would you want to remember it? Of course in the spectacular way! Photography is a dream; Every individual has a dream; A dream is a compilation of pictures, but if you don't have someone who is professional in the act of photography, you can't have a hard copy of your dream. "Why not replicate your dream in picture?" - think as you plan your event. As you think that through, it is also necessary to ask yourself a simple question "what makes a professional photographer?" Although the definition of being a professional is pretty straightforward, for the ones searching for where they fit-into in the photography world, it can actually feel abstract in concept. As I can see from most pictures and events I have attended in Nigeria, especially Lagos, there are many photographers wondering where they fits in. To make it understandable, you are a professional at something when its your profession. And a profession in the freest sense of the word is " a vocation or business". Although in the photographic world, the word profession may have an additional austere definition - that's open for debate. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as say, being a doctor or a therapist or even a farmer. Because photography is unique in that it is a hobby or passion which can turn into a business. Simply let's value professional photographers.

RAW vs. JPEG

Raw vs Jpeg

INTRODUCTION
This page explains these formats. See my D200 Image Quality Settings page for detailed examples of image quality and suggested camera settings.
TERMINOLOGY
Image Size
Image size is measured in pixels. In the D200 they are called Large (3,872 x 2,592 pixels), Medium (2,896 x 1,944) and Small (1,936 x 1,296).
JPGs can be saved in these different sizes.
Raw data can't have it's image size changed in-camera.
Most people, including myself, shoot the largest size, since they paid good money for the resolution.
I shoot in Medium if I'm shooting zillions of people shots. You'll see that they look as good, and halve the amount of time and space taken by the files for shooting, transfer and burning.
Large, Medium and Small are relative.
Medium on a D200 or D80 is about the same size as the Large setting on a D1X, D70, D100 or D50.
Small on a D200 or D80 is about the same size as medium on a D1X, D70, D100 or D50.
Small on a D200 or D80 is about the same size as the only size available on the D1 and D1H. I paid over $4,000 for my D1H in 2002 whose largest image was only the same as the Small setting on my D200.
Nikons say Large, Medium and Small. Most cameras also show the size in pixels. Other cameras indicate Megapixels (MP) as you change the size. These all mean the same thing.
Which is Better: a 10MP camera dialed down to 3MP, or a 3MP camera?
Easy: when set to the same resolution, a higher-resolution camera set to a lower resolution always looks better than a camera with that native resolution.
This is because digital cameras cheat and use Bayer Interpolation. They don't really have that many color pixels on their CCDs. CCDs are actually black-and-white and use colored stripes to see color. Bayer Interpolation spreads the data around to fill in each pixel as if it could could see color. Because of this the images of all digital cameras at their native resolutions are more blurred than they could be.
If you halve the size of the image, the pixel-to-pixel sharpness will increase because there is now enough data for each and every pixel. See my Bayer Interpolation page for examples.
Therefore it's always better to use a higher resolution camera set down to a lower resolution than a camera with only that much resolution.
In 2002 I ran tests and it was obvious that a D1X set down to 2,000 x 1,312 pixels was much sharper than a D1H at that same resolution.
The D200 is a lot sharper at Small than the D1H was at the same size because the D1H was pushing it with Bayer Interpolation to make its file, while the D200 has enough data for a much sharper image at that same size.
You don't lose much real resolution when setting a digital camera to a slightly lower resolution.
Raw
All cameras start with raw data sucked off the sensor. Most cameras create JPGs with this data and then throw the raw data away.
Fancy cameras allow you to save the raw data so you can screw with it later in software on your computer. Software does the same thing to create images from the raw data that the camera's hardware does. Software is much slower than hardware. That's why cameras can spit out 5 JPGs per second, but your computer probably takes 10 seconds to open just one raw file. Each is doing exactly the same thing to the same data.
If you want to save the raw data you can save it as the random data from the sensor. This is called uncompressed raw. Nikon's version is called NEF and Canons is called CRW.
Compressed Raw
Since raw data is just data it can be compressed losslessly to save a lot of space. Since it is mostly random you get the usual 2:1 compression per Lempel-Ziv and recover every single bit later.
Nikon uses lossless compression of the data, but is clever enough to apply some of it's curve-shaping to curve 12-bit data to 10 bit data before storage. This mapping scares innocent laypeople. It's invisible. As you can see on my D200 examples, JPG compression is invisible unless you set it all the way down. The only potential defect in this mapping is the addition of noise far less than the noise already present in the sensor, so it doesn't matter.
JPGs
The camera creates images from the raw data.
The camera then uses a very clever trick called JPG compression to make a much smaller file from this image
JPGs are brilliant. They keep the same image size, sharpness and resolution and get rid of must of the repetitive data so you don't have to store it.
Just as slugs can't comprehend the cosmos, laypeople without PhDs in mathematics can't comprehend how JPGs retain image quality. One day I'll explain how JPGs use gamma conversions, discrete cosine transforms, quantization matrices and Huffman coding to pack 14 bit linear raw data into 8 bit JPGs. Don't worry, JPGs work great as you can see at my examples.
FILE SIZES
File size is measured in MegaBytes, MB. There is no direct way to set this on a camera.
File size depends on the image size in pixels and the file format.
File size in MB tells you nothing about the quality of an image. For any file size a JPG will be better than a TIF or raw.
Raw
Raw data makes huge files.
Compressed raw returns the exact same data, but with only half the file size needed for storage. It's exactly like taking the water out of the orange juice at the grove, and adding the water back in later so you don't have to truck it around. Data compression works even better.
Lossless compression is exactly that: it saves half your space and restores every exact bit.
JPGs
JPGs are lossy compression. They throw away data very cleverly so it's not visible. They can save a lot more space than lossless compression. JPGs easily can throw away 90% of the file size and still look perfect!
JPGs allow you to set the quality level, or how much gets thrown away. This is in your camera as "quality" or in Photoshop's save dialog boxes.
JPG also supports lossless operation. Save in Photoshop at level 12.
JPG file sizes vary with the amount of image detail and quality setting. JPGs need more data if there are more lines or details and textures in an image.
JPGs can compress more if there is less detail in an image. A flat image of a blank sky requires very few bits.
Some cameras, like Nikon and Casio, save JPGs with almost identical file size. These camera's quality will vary with the complexity of the image while the files sizes stay constant. I dislike this.
Other cameras, like Canon and Sony, keep the quality constant and let the file size vary to suit each shot. I prefer this as it makes the best use of my data storage and saves me from wanting to twiddle the quality settings shot-to-shot.
EXAMPLES
This is the fun part: go see them here!
PLUG
If you find this as helpful as a book you might have had to buy or a workshop you may have had to take, feel free to help me write more with a donation.
Thanks for reading!
Ken

Image compression: RAW + JPEG shooting
One of the first things you need to decide when using a digital camera is whether to shoot in RAW or JPEG file format. Or so you might have thought. In fact, with most EOS digital cameras you don’t have to make that choice – you can shoot both simultaneously. All EOS digital cameras (except the EOS D30 and D60) can save both RAW and JPEG files to the CompactFlash card at the same time. And if your camera has card slots for CompactFlash and SecureDigital media, it is possible to save RAW files to one and JPEG files to the other at the same time.

Some photographers prefer to shoot RAW because of the extra flexibility this file format offers; others prefer to shoot JPEG because it means they don’t have to spend so much time on their computers afterwards. By shooting both RAW and JPEG together, you can get the best of both worlds – an image that you can tweak endlessly in RAW software, and one that you can print out straight away without the need for conversion on your computer.
The downside – and there is always a downside – is that saving both takes up valuable memory card space. This means you’ll be using more memory cards – and changing them more frequently.
Prints and e-mail
There might be times when you want to take photographs to e-mail, or for a website, but also need prints at a later date. Let’s say there is an event such as a wedding or anniversary, or the birth of a child. You might want to send a few of the images you have taken to friends and relations by e-mail without delay, but also make some quality prints later. Here, you can shoot with RAW+Small/Normal JPEG.
Safety net
Even if you generally shoot only JPEGs, there are occasions when you might want to shoot RAW and JPEG simultaneously simply because you want back-up and peace of mind. If you have been asked to photograph a wedding, for example, you can shoot Large/Fine JPEG images to avoid a lot of post-processing work on a computer. However, if for any reason you need to tweak the contrast or exposure more than you are able to with your JPEG files, then you’ve got the RAW files as back-up. You can pick and choose the individual RAW files that you want to convert and work on.
Colour cast
Imagine you are photographing a wedding. Inside the church you set the camera white balance to ‘Tungsten’ for available light shots of the service. Then you rush outside to start taking pictures of the couple as they came out of the church – but forget to reset the white balance to ‘Daylight’.
All the images have a strong blue colour cast (above left). If all the images were shot as JPEG files, you might be able to make some corrections to the files in Photoshop, but the colours will not be perfect. If you had shot a backup set of images as RAW files, the day would have been saved. Before each RAW file was converted, you would have been able to change the white balance from ‘Tungsten’ to ‘Daylight’ and the final prints would have shown correct colours (above right).

Tethered computers and WiFi networks

Capturing RAW and JPEG images together can be a real advantage if you are shooting tethered to a computer. The set-up allows you (and anybody else involved in the shoot) to check the images immediately on your computer’s much larger screen. However, downloading RAW files to your computer can be quite slow, especially if you are shooting in bursts.
Capturing RAW+JPEG gives you much more flexibility. You can download the JPEG files to your computer, while the RAW files stay on the CompactFlash card. Downloading JPEGs to your computer is much quicker than downloading RAW files, which means you don’t have to wait as long for the images to appear on the screen.
This is especially important if you are using one of the Canon WiFi units to transmit images wirelessly back to your computer. Although these wireless transmitters are able to transmit at up to 54mbps, in practice they can only transmit at the maximum speed of your network, which may be much slower if conditions are less than ideal. Sending large files across a wireless network is never lightning fast, so minimizing the size of the file you need to send will ensure the best network performance, while leaving the high-quality image files on your camera for working on later.
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A big problem in 2008 is that people are shooting raw and not knowing why. Raw requires dedicated software to read. If you just bought a new camera, you won't be able to open the files until you update your computer's software.
Worse, many new cameras come out a week before the camera maker's software is updated, and if you use software by Adobe, Apple or others, may have to wait weeks (or much longer) until there is an update. That means you may not be able to open your files today with your new camera if you didn't shoot JPG!
If you use Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw, you just might have to buy the newest version of Photoshop, since Adobe doesn't update older versions to read the files from new cameras. Ha Ha! Photoshop is so good I've seen no need to update from CS2, and not shooting raw, I don't have to.
If you're shooting action, raw doesn't work. You'll fill an 8 gig card faster than you can imagine.
I never shoot raw. Why would I? Raw is a waste of time and space, and doesn't look any better than JPG even when you can open the files.
INTRODUCTION
Cameras all start with raw data and convert this data to JPG images with hardware in the camera. They then throw away the raw data since it's no longer needed.
Saving this raw data is exactly like people who save twenty years of newspapers in piles around their house. They know they might need the information sometime, but it sure gets in the way! Other people think they are crazy.
Some fancier cameras save this raw data so you can use software to do the same thing the camera's hardware did, later. Software takes much longer to do the same thing the camera's hardware does, but gives less confident people the chance to try to fix mistakes later.
Image quality is the same in JPG and raw. See my D200 Image Quality Setting Examples. See also my explanation of File Formats.
This page generates controversy because fact doesn't always agree with old wives' tales circulated by newcomers to digital photography in chat rooms. I'm sharing what works for me gathered across three decades of continuous full-time paid professional experience in digital imaging. In addition I was studying digital imaging for ten years before I got my engineering degree and started as a professional working with the guys with Ph.Ds in mathematics who invented all this.
A reader's response to those who take issue with the observations I share below is here.
WHICH SHOULD YOU SHOOT?
If you have to ask then just shoot JPG.
This is pretty simple and I'll get into way too much detail later.
If you shoot hundreds or thousands of images in a day shoot JPG and don't worry. The quality is the same for almost all intents and purposes as raw, and the raw files would take gigabytes or tens of gigabytes and resultant hours to download, convert, catalog and burn to backup CDs. In fact, if you shoot this much then JPG can give better quality since attempting to shoot this much raw will constipate your workflow and you could miss making some images entirely as your cards fill up. You'd always be running out of memory cards or time waiting for the access light to stop blinking.
If you love to tweak your images one-by one and shoot less than about a hundred shots at a time than raw could be for you. In fact, if you prefer the look you can get from raw (it may be different from JPG in some cases depending on software) you can let your computer batch process images and save the results as JPGs, too. I almost never shoot anything in raw, and when I do I never see any difference for all the effort I wasted anyway. (I can see differences if I blow things up to 100% or bigger on my computer, but not in prints.)
That's about all there is to it. It's sad that some people actually get so excited by all this that they put up hate sites like one that used to be here. It's sad because I completely agree with Petteri's Pontifications. I think he moved that hate page here. One's preference for JPG or raw depends on what you're trying to do. Each format has no absolute goodness; it's all in how appropriate they are to your particular work at hand. Everyone's needs vary and I just happen to prefer JPG.
With that said, here's more in my "usual opinionated, cranky style." If you understand the basics above you can safely skip it.
JPG Basics
JPGs (same as JPEGs) are normal digital camera images. Cameras create JPG images from raw image sensor data based on your settings like Sharpness and White Balance. The camera makes the JPG and then the raw data evaporates as soon as the JPG is recorded.
Beware JPEG 2000 which you only find in some advanced software. It was a newer proposed version of JPG that has been forgotten today for still photography. It is COMPLETELY INCOMPATIBLE WITH the current JPG systems. JPEG 2000 has found application in the Digital Cinema Initiative and will be used as their standard for the movies many or most of us will be seeing in theaters today and in the near future.
Raw Basics
Raw files are just the raw sensor data. It isn't a picture until it is processed further. Most fancy digital cameras allow you to save the raw data instead of the actual JPG picture. If you do, you still have to do the processing in your computer to make an image (JPG or otherwise) that you actually can see. Cameras do this processing in hardware much faster than your computer can do it in software.
Some cameras have a handy raw + JPG mode which saves both the raw data and the JPG picture.
Raw files are just like raw olives: you need to cook or otherwise process them before you can use them. They also go bad fast if left in the raw state and can keep forever once processed to something like olive oil or JPGs.
Horror of horrors, I've heard that the latest Nikon software can't even read the NEFs from older cameras and that you need to load older software to read them. Just like raw eggs, unless you process it into something like an egg-albumen print or a JPG, the raw files may go bad if left unprocessed.
It's not the file that goes bad, silly, it's the potential ability of future software to read it. Since raw data is entirely unique to each camera, and different even for different firmware revisions for the same camera, raw isn't even a format, even though the different files have the same suffix like .CRW or .NEF.
Raw files themselves don't go bad. What goes bad is that in 10 or 20 years, whatever software we're running on whatever sort of computer we'll be using may not be able to open a long-forgotten 20-year old proprietary file.
JPGs are universal. Raw is proprietary to camera make and model and even camera firmware version. Without solid manufacturer support you won't be able to use your raw files again.
Can you find a computer to open word processing files from 10 or 20 years ago today in Lotus Notes or PFS Write or Brother Style Writer? I can't; that's why I converted my files from these programs to the universal .TXT format back when I could. Do you trust Canon, Nikon and Adobe to support 10 or 20 year old cameras? How about 30 or 40 year old cameras? If you do, go ahead and leave your raw files as raw. I convert all my raw files to JPGs or TIFFs for archiving.
The JPG processing in the camera can be better than what you may be able to do later in software from raw. In the September 2004 issue of "Outdoor Photographer" magazine, page 25, Rob Shepard says "...the high quality JPEG images looked far superior to the raw files when both were opened directly."
Cameras create their JPGs from the 12 bit or more raw data as it comes off the sensor. Your contrast, white balance, sharpening and everything are applied to the raw data in-camera, and only afterwards is the file compressed and stored as a JPG. You'll see no additional artifacts since that's all done before the JPG conversion.
Using raw files obviously takes a lot more time and patience, like refrying beans, since you could have had all that processing done right in the camera for free. You only want to go through this trouble if for some reason you're unsure of what settings to use. The raw data, since it includes everything, also takes up a whole lot more space and takes more time to move around. It's sort of like either having a complete car that runs (JPG), or a science project in a million pieces that still needs assembly before you can drive it (raw). You can't really change exposure after a raw file is shot, although the software that opens this data gives one the option to rescale the data and give the impression of changing exposure. You can get this same synthetic lightening from JPGs, too, although only raw allows some ability to correct overexposure.
I take a lot of heat from tweakers because I, like other photographers, prefer to make my adjustments in-camera and use the JPGs directly. Others prefer to spend even more time later twiddling in raw, but that's not for me. I get the look I need with JPGs and prefer to spend my time making more photos. If you're the sort of person who likes to twiddle and redo than by all means raw is for you.
Everyone's needs vary. For many hobbyists tweaking is part of the fun and I don't want to spoil that. Please just don't take it personally that I prefer to get my shots right the first time instead of having to tweak them later. If I need to correct a goof I just do it from the JPGs.
JPG Details
JPG (same as JPEG) is the standard used by prolific shooters. It gives great quality and offers the fastest speed for everything. It is the most popular and compatible image format on the planet. It is especially popular for the things for which digital cameras are best suited in the first place, like news, sports and events. With JPG you can shoot hundreds or thousands of images at a time and the files are ready for release with no further processing. JPGs done properly, as digital cameras do when set to NORMAL or FINE, give great results you can use immediately. Of course you need a professional digital camera that provides the exact in-camera adjustments, like subtle white balance control and immediate, easy access to them, to be able to do this. Pros skip many of the cameras that excite amateurs if those cameras require adjustments to be made through menus or have limited WB capabilities.
Professional journalists like Karl Grobl who need to produce results shoot JPG. Karl just returned from a two month series of assignments in Asia. He brought back 20 Gigabytes of JPGs, and those were just the keepers. Karl no longer has the time to piddle with anything in Photoshop: if the image isn't perfect as shot it gets deleted. Life is too short to piddle with sloppy images if making images is what you do for a living. Of course if photography is your hobby and you find the piddling enjoyable or if you're in a studio with time to burn then that's another story. Karl has a ton of images he needs to get to a ton of clients, and then he's off on the next assignment. There is just no time to wait for things like raw file processing. I've seen Karl's 20 x 30" prints from his JPGs and they are spectacular.
Sometimes raw will look different from JPG depending on the differences between sharpening algorithms used in-camera (JPG) and in different versions of software (raw.) I find every raw opener (Adobe Photoshop CS, Adobe Camera raw, the camera maker's version, iView, etc.) processes the image a little bit differently in terms of sharpness, curves and colors, so you never really have a definitive look until after you've opened and saved the file as a standard JPG, PSD or TIFF.
You may prefer one or the other. If you don't like the in-camera options, shoot unsharpened JPGs and sharpen elsewhere. Likewise, if you set the wrong white balance or underexposed you can always correct it later using, for instance, Photoshop's Levels, Curves and/or Color Balance features, among others. I have no problem adding two stops of exposure to a dark JPG in Photoshop's Levels or Curves command.
Many people who shoot raw, which I consider to be a big waste of time, don't realize that white balance can be adjusted in Photoshop even from JPGs. No, Photoshop doesn't yet have a "dummies" panel actually marked with common white balance monikers, but skilled photographers have always been able to do it. I prefer using the "Set White Point" and "Set Neutral Gray" eyedroppers in the Levels command. See here for how to do it.
Some cameras, like the Casio EX-Z750, allow correction of JPGs for White Balance and exposure after they've been shot as well.
I've made deliberate comparisons on my D1H (and so can you) by shooting a scene in both JPG and raw at ISO 200, ISO 800 and then underexposing two stops (set exposure compensation to -2) at ISO 200. There now are six shots. Open the underexposed raw by adding +2 stops while opening and apply correction to the dark JPG with Levels or Curves. Now look at these two vs. the shots made at ISO 800. They look pretty much the same, which if you really get into the camera's signal processing and external math you'll realize that you're doing the same thing to the same data; just the different processes are doing these identical algorithms in different places. Of course how you lighten the dark JPG will probably alter the look of the image; I forget what curves I used best to simulate adding two stops. Hee hee, I only made the normal ISO 200 shots to show that pushing two stops from ISO 200 gives the same grain as shooting directly at ISO 800. Actually it's better to shoot at ISO 800 in the first place since the camera does a better job by increasing the analog gain of the CCD amplifiers. Also the very best image of that indoor/outdoor contrasty scene was made by using the underexposed image (which retained the outdoor part) and using a filter to lighten the dark indoors. I got the same result from the JPG and raw files.
If you're a tweaker you'd be interested to learn raw and JPG also have the same effective bit precision. JPG has 8 bits per color per pixel and raw may have 12 bits, but here's the big catch: raw is 12 bit linear, and JPG is 8 bit log, gamma corrected or some other non-linear transform derived from the 12 bit linear data. Thus in the shadows where this might matter the two are the same, since the full 12 bit resolution in the dark areas is preserved by the non-linear coding. Even if the two formats differed in dark resolution the sensor noise is still greater than one LSB anyway making it a moot point.
Raw Details
Raw is designed for people who intend to spend a lot of time twiddling with one image at a time. For these applications I use large format 4x5" film instead for much better quality, thus you see why I don't use raw. Raw is very popular for people shooting landscapes with digital cameras, which is not what digital cameras are for. Unfortunately this is becoming popular among amateurs, but remember that for amateurs the fun is in making the photo, and for fun digital is king. Personally I focus on the final image, for which big film excels. This goes to explain all the heat I get from hobbyists, who of course love raw and shoot Yosemite on their digital SLRs which is very different from what I do. Raw is also for people who don't yet get perfect exposure right when they make the image, although of course JPEGs also allow these adjustments.
Raw is needlessly tedious if you can get the right image to begin with. Raw always requires extra steps to process from the camera into a usable format, the files can only be opened with very special software, requires far more time for everything and therefore slows workflows. In fact, raw is not any sort of a standard format: .CRW or .NEF or whatever files are actually very different from each model of camera, and you constantly need to be updating your conversion software just to be able to read files from whatever camera you just got. I had NEF files from an advance sample of a Nikon D70 I couldn't open since the software had not been released. In the professional arena workflow efficiency is the difference between waiting for a batch convert to complete and working on a new paying project. Raw looks the same anyway as a good JPG. I will admit that on the D70 the differences in default sharpening are such that the raw images do look sharper than the JPGs if you're looking zoomed in to 100% on a computer, but were still invisible to me in 12 x 18" prints.
Don't pay too much attention to sales demos showing how you can restore details in highlights for a shot that was overexposed by a critical half stop. First off, no one really is so bad a studio photographer that they'd actually overexpose a series of studio shots by a half a stop and not know it on a digital camera. That reminds me of comedian George Carlin's line about he thinks that the stupidest thing a human being can do is to run out of gas in a car with a working gas gauge. You can see overexposure on the LCD of the digicam. Yes, raw is great to catch this last half a stop if you goofed, but that's about as far as it can correct depending on your camera. Today I find that unlike earlier cameras the Nikon D70 seems to offer a good deal more ability to catch lost highlights, which again I have yet to see that the efforts involved with raw justified any improvement in the final image. Even though I could see the improvement, my girlfriend still preferred the 12 x 18" print of the BASIC JPG image to the 12 x 18" print made from the raw file on which I spent an hour correcting all the levels and lens distortion and chromatic issues. Such is art!
If you intend to spend hours twiddling with individual shots or have enough time to waste piddling in chat rooms like this then go ahead and shoot raw, just remember to save them as something standardized so you can read them later. If you need loads of great images now then shoot straight to standard JPGs.
Raw looks no better than JPG for real photos. It just takes up space, wastes your time and runs the risk of not being able to be opened now and in the future. Raw is OK if you only shoot a few dozen images and you want to play around with each of them in Photoshop; JPG is best if you need hundreds or thousands of images each day and get them right in the camera to begin with. The latest trick of making dual-exposure composites from single raw files actually can be done just the same from a JPG; just open the JPG (exposed for the highlights) in Photoshop and apply the LEVELS or CURVES command to the layer representing your shadows.
Example 1 : a friend of mine on his first day out with his D1X shot a foot race. He had no idea he would shoot so much and his single 256MB card was filling up quickly. He had to set the camera down to SMALL resolution (1,312 x 2,000) and BASIC JPG (256kB) so he could keep shooting. He then licensed one of those image files to a shoe company for use on a poster. It looked great in print and he got $1,200 for the temporary use of the file. (No, he did not sell the image outright for such a low price.) Sure, he could have shot raw, but if he did he would have missed the shot completely since he would have been out of memory giving him no image at all instead of a great looking one.
Example 2: While everyone was in chat rooms yesterday I spent the day consulting on a shoot of a $7,000,000 home. We shot raw + JPG on a Canon 1Ds so my client would have both kinds of files from which to learn afterwards. It took a half hour to download the images from the 1 Gig flash card, and we never even used the raw files. The JPGS were all we used, and we had the files prepped, profiled and ready to go to press that night at 355DPI for use in a very high-end publication. None of the raw files were used, but they did waste our time. There also is some weirdness in how the 1Ds records these in the raw + JPG mode, see here.
JPG - More
Prolific shooters shoot JPG because time is money and we are able to get things right the first time. JPGs, especially the larger JPGs, offer the same image quality as raw or TIFF, with much less time and effort if you can set your camera correctly to begin with.
JPGs work the fastest in file transfers, CD backups, reprocessing for automated web galleries, ability to drop off for printing at a lab, file opening, ability to send files to clients and everything really. Therefore, since time is money in every profession, JPG is the format of choice for photography.
JPG is the world's most popular format for digital images. It is the format most likely to be legible to any piece of equipment, in fact, even many DVD players can read JPGs from a CD.
The ability to get a shot right the first time is one of the things good shooters get from practice. One needs a camera that can be adjusted instantly for ISO, White Balance (WB), exposure compensation and sharpening. This is why I complain if a camera requires menus to make adjustments. Good cameras like the Nikon D1H allow one to make most of these adjustments instantly with dedicated buttons, no menus required. The best delineator between a pro camera and a tyro's toy is whether or not you need menus to adjust it from shot to shot. In any shoot I am constantly adjusting all these things as my light and subject change, so there is no time to wait around for menus.
More pedestrian cameras, like my point-and-shoot digital A70, require me to stop and twiddle through menus to adjust any of these things. This makes it much harder to get a perfect image immediately.
A well-done JPG is all I ever need.
If I didn't have a camera that allowed me to get the right results the first time I might be tempted by the tedious raw format. Oddly, the simpler cameras that might need raw don't offer it, and the better cameras that do usually don't need it!
Some people worry that JPG implies poor quality. This is because JPEG files can be made at any quality level, high or low, and we've all seen bad JPGs.
Photoshop users know that you have a huge range of quality settings when you "SAVE AS" or SAVE FOR WEB." Smaller JPGs, especially what you see formatted for the internet on my and other websites for easy download over telephone lines, will have artifacts often visible as slight noise around a sharp line against a flat background, or potential blockiness of a smooth area like the sky, or slight muddling of textured areas. This is not a problem with the JPG format, it's just that those JPGs were deliberately made to be have small file sizes and thus unfortunately look crummy.
The JPG format is adjustable for quality vs. file size. Larger JPGs, which is what cameras record, record enough data, especially at the milder compression settings (FINE on Nikon and Canon) so that these artifacts don't occur. JPGs at the correct quality settings have no visible artifacts. Play with this yourself as I have: make a bunch of photos at the different settings (including raw) and put them all up on your screen at 100%. You'll see for yourself.
Thus there is no quality disadvantage to using JPGs correctly, and many logistical advantages.
Raw - More
Raw are proprietary nonstandard formats just for getting images to your computer before saving or processing. They always require a special step just to open them after which you can save them in a useable format. Each camera maker has its own incompatible format.
Even worse, some camera makers want to ensure you have to buy special software from them and only them in order to read your files. See here about how Nikon is encrypting the raw files from the D2X to ensure that only their software will work properly. This means that if Japanese industrial giant Mitsubishi, parent of Nikon, wanted to raise profits they may already have set the current software to time-out your ability to read today's raw files in a few years, and then the only way you could see your photos is to buy new software.
If you have time to burn and don't mind the incompatibility aspect by all means go raw. If you are only shooting a few images at a time don't worry too much and use raw if you want.
Raw formats, like Nikon's NEF and Canon's CRW, are aimed at people who have the time to piddle around after a shoot to make up for what was not set correctly in the first place. Theses folks are the ones who also have the time to spend in chat rooms like this instead of actually photographing.
The biggest quality advantage of raw is the ability to correct for some of your mistakes after the fact, so if you can get it right the first time most of the raw advantage evaporates, but all the disadvantages remain.
Raw is free from visible compression artifacts, just like JPG at the milder compression levels. It also can record with a couple of more bits of z-axis precision (12 bits instead of 8 bits) , which is invisible unless you have a very poorly lit image and need to do horrendous curve adjustments. In this case your problem is not file format; it's your lighting.
But no! Raw records usually with 12 bits, but a linear 12 bits. JPG uses only 8 bits, but these are after the log and gamma conversion, and thus preserves the 12 bit precision at the shadow levels where it's important!
Raw is NOT a digital negative. Unlike a real negative, it still has restricted resolution and dynamic range, and most importantly, cannot be read or seen except with very special software. JPGs are far more universally read, and closer to a negative in terms of being visible to everyone over time. Raw is like a color negative since each piece of software you might use to open it yields different colors!
Disadvantages of Raw:
1.) Time is money to people who need to make money from photography. We simply don't have the time to waste for all the files to download and then especially to wait while hundreds of raw files open up the hard way before we can see them, much less do anything with them.
Raw takes too long: too long to record to the card, especially with compressed versions, takes up too much space on the card so more cards are required, takes longer to transfer to a computer, longer to back up to CDs and takes more CDs, etc. Not only is there a big disadvantage due to the bigger file sizes, but also:
2.) The formats are not standardized. With Nikon and Canon at least the latest version Photoshop CS can open the raw formats, but otherwise you have to revert to using each manufacturer's proprietary software. This may be something you are willing to flog through today, but what if a fringe manufacturer like Sigma, that as far as I know is not supported in Photoshop CS and certainly not likely supported in Breeze Browser or iView as far as I know, decides not to supply upgraded software in the coming years that can run on the computers of the future if Sigma is no longer choosing to make or support digital cameras? If you can't run today's reader software in the future then you won't be able to read your image files and they are lost forever. Thus you see why raw files are not at all like a negative that you can read in 50 or 100 years.
3.) Because it's not standardized, you can't send these files to clients or anyone and expect them to open. Also if you do, and they can read them, then you have lost control over how your file looks, since they may choose to open it differently. (Of course if your client asks for raw give it to them.) If you shoot raw you have to open each file and convert it to something like JPG or TIFF before you can send it out. This costs time you simply don't have to spend if you had shot JPG to begin with. This is one thing for just a few shots, especially if you are going to play with them in Photoshop anyway, but if you are doing this for money you are probably dealing with hundreds and hundreds of files everyday and there just is not enough time. Personally I try to create hundreds of JPGs I can send directly to my client so I can get onto the next project immediately. I only open things in Photoshop if I goofed the first time.
4.) Each camera maker has its own incompatible format. One cannot save files in raw format either, thank goodness.
5.) Different software opens up the files differently. The same files look different! I see one thing with Photoshop's Camera raw plug in, one thing with Nikon's plug in, and different things on different versions of iView even in different screens! In this way raw is like a digital negative: the colors and sharpness look different every time you try to print it! Pros need images that always look the right color; the color we captured in the first place, which is why slide film is far more popular than negative film professionally.
6.) Did I say it takes a long time? I had one camera maker's plug in take 30 seconds to open a raw file, and that's after you manually chose all the settings with which you want the file to open. The preview was crummy, so that you might have to try a few times until you get it right, just to open a file. Multiply this by 500 shots made at a wedding and you can see why it's just not happening.
7.) Today's versions of software may not be able to open older raw files, losing your images forever. My prognostication of this photographic apocalypse is nigh: as of July 2005 a reader writes that he couldn't get Nikon Capture 4.3 or Photoshop to open older NEF files, getting "unexpected end of file" errors. While waiting for Nikon support to tell him what historical combination of Nikon Capture and Nikon View versions would enable to see his images he tried Bibble Pro, which worked. I always make TIF archive copies of anything about which I care shot in raw. Raw means raw, which means it's not cooked and very perishable. Just like raw meat, raw files become worthless as time progresses unless they are processed into something with a long life, like a standard TIF or JPG image.
So by all means shoot raw if you want, just don't expect any visible quality difference, and do be prepared for a lot of time spent twiddling and the possibility of not being able to open files occasionally now or ever in the future. I gave up on raw since every program I use opens them differently, and every different version of a program, like iView, deals with them differently in every release.
Personally, when I want quality and have the time to mess with things I shoot on film and scan it. This way I also have a color standard, the transparency, against which to compare the files and prints.
If you shoot raw I prefer the built-in plugin with Photoshop CS for opening all these files. Here's a great article on how to calibrate color if you insist.
Others speak very highly of Nikon's extra-cost Capture program. I've never tried it. If I shot raw I would certainly try it out. I think there are free demos available, too. If you do shoot raw of course you can go get the program in the future if you're unhappy with other openers.
CHILDISH TOILET HUMOR
Now that you've read this far here's a summary of what it's like waiting around for big raw files to transfer and burn and process. Sorry if this offends adults; we children find this hilarious.

Raw + JPG Modes
As of 2004 many cameras allow you to record both. This is great, since you
1.) Have the JPGs for immediate use
2.) Have the raw files if you need or want them,
and most importantly,
3.) Have a back-up file in case either is corrupted.
The disadvantages are that you wind up recording even more data that you probably don't need. Data transfer and storage and archiving and backup takes time, which is money to a professional or anyone else who values their finite time on this planet.
TIFF
TIFFs (also called .TIF) are very large files used for saving processed images.
TIFFs are used only in tethered studio applications, if ever, for camera capture. Tiffs don't have any of the post-processing advantages of raw and have enormous file sizes that will completely clog up any workflow if you are shooting many images on cards.
TIFF (or PSD, the format native to Photoshop) is perfectly fine for archiving files after you've played around with them or for sending to a client on CD. Just don't set your camera to this format for recording on cards since it's so cumbersome.
ARCHIVING
If you shoot JPG, just archive the camera original JPG files.
If you shoot raw you should also archive everything in a standard JPG or TIFF format so you'll be assured of having the best chance of being able to open and use the files in the future.

Photographers' Arena

RAW vs. JPEG

The following tip on RAW vs JPEG was submitted by Richard and Rebecca from Finn Productions (You can see their Flickr account here) . It came out of a discussion in our Flickr Group titled JPG or RAW. There is actually a lot of good discussion already in this thread so once you’ve read the following head over and see what others have to say on the topic.
So, you’ve forked over at least $600 (but probably $1000) for your first DSLR camera. You have more buttons, dials, and menus than you know what to do with, even after reading through the fat booklet that came with your camera and explains its usage in ten differnent languages.
It’s all you can do to understand ISO, shutter speed, and how less is more when it comes to aperture. This beast of a camera can produce files in a Raw format, whatever that means, but it also has the nice comfortable JPEG format that we all know and love.
Like me you probably happily shoot in JPEG for quite awhile – getting used to the myriad of options available to you. One day you look at that Raw setting and ask, “should I be using Raw for the best quality? What is Raw, exactly?”
Excellent question. First, let us define these two formats.

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A Raw file is…
• not an image file per se (it will require special software to view, though this software is easy to get).
• typically a proprietary format (with the exception of Adobe’s DNG format that isn’t widely used yet).
• at least 8 bits per color – red, green, and blue (12-bits per X,Y location), though most DSLRs record 12-bit color (36-bits per location).
• uncompressed (an 8 megapixel camera will produce a 8 MB Raw file).
• the complete (lossless) data from the camera’s sensor.
• higher in dynamic range (ability to display highlights and shadows).
• lower in contrast (flatter, washed out looking).
• not as sharp.
• not suitable for printing directly from the camera or without post processing.
• read only (all changes are saved in an XMP “sidecar” file or to a JPEG or other image format).
• sometimes admissable in a court as evidence (as opposed to a changeable image format).
• waiting to be processed by your computer.
In comparison a JPEG is…
• a standard format readable by any image program on the market or available open source.
• exactly 8-bits per color (12-bits per location).
• compressed (by looking for redundancy in the data like a ZIP file or stripping out what human can’t perceive like a MP3).
• fairly small in file size (an 8 megapixel camera will produce JPEG between 1 and 3 MB’s in size).
• lower in dynamic range.
• higher in contrast.
• sharper.
• immediately suitable for printing, sharing, or posting on the Web.
• not in need of correction most of the time (75% in my experience).
• able to be manipulated, though not without losing data each time an edit is made – even if it’s just to rotate the image (the opposite of lossless).
• processed by your camera.
These differences lead implicitly to situations that require choosing one over the other. For instance, if you do not have much capacity to store images in camera (because you spent all your money on the camera body) then shooting in JPEG will allow to capture 2 or 3 times the number you could shooting in Raw. This is also a good idea if you are at a party or some other event afterwhich you want to share your photos quickly and easily.
On the other hand, if capacity is not an issue at all (1 GB and 2 GB flash cards are getting cheaper every week) you might consider shooting in Raw + JPEG, just to cover all the possibilities. If you cannot or do not want to do any post processing, then you simply have to shoot in JPEG. Taking a picture in Raw is only the first step in producing a quality image ready for printing. If, on the other hand, quality is of the utmost importance (like when you are shooting professionally), and you want to get every bit of performance your DSLR can offer then you should be shooting in Raw.
That being said, I know many professional photographers who do not shoot in Raw for one of two reasons: 1.) they don’t know how, or 2.) they don’t want to take the time to process the images afterwards.
Shooting in JPEG
When you shoot in JPEG the camera’s internal software (often called “firmware” since it’s part of the hardware inside your camera) will take the information off the sensor and quickly process it before saving it. Some color is lost as is some of the resolution (and on some cameras there is slightly more noise in a JPEG than its Raw version).
The major actor in this case is the Discrete Cosine Transforamtion (or DCT) which divides the image into blocks (usually 8×8 pixels) and determines what can be “safely” thrown away because it is less perceivable (the higher the compression ration/lower quality JPEG, the more is thrown away during this step). And when the image is put back together a row of 24 pixels that had 24 different tones might now only have 4 or 5. That information is forever lost without the raw data from the sensor recorded in a Raw file.
The quality of a JPEG taken with a DSLR will still be far better than the same shot taken with a top-of-the-line point-n-shoot camera that is as old as your DSLR. If your camera can burst (shoot continuously for a few seconds) you’ll actually be able to shoot more shots using JPEG than Raw because the slowest part of the whole process is actually saving the file to your memory card – so the larger Raws take longer to save.
Shooting in Raw
If you do shoot in Raw, your computer rather than the camera will process the data and generate an image file form it. Guess which has more processing power: your digital camera or your computer? Shooting in Raw will give you much more control over how your image looks and even be able to correct several sins you may have committed when you took the photograph, such as the exposure.
To take advantage of this you will certainly need to use some software on your computer to process the files and produce JPEGs (or TIFFs). I have found the Camera Raw that comes with Adobe Photoshop CS2 to be very good at processing Raw files (even batch processing them), though everybody has their favorite (RawShooter has a lot of fans). When you load a Raw file using Adobe Photoshop CS2 the Camera Raw dialog will automatically pop up. Most of the time the automatic settings are fairly decent, but you have the chance to change the white balance, exposure, contrast, saturation, and even calibration of the red, green, and blue guns or correct for lens abberation – all lossless.
If the white balance is off I have found that it is much easier to fix using the Camera Raw screen than loading the JPEG and manipulating that – the end result is much better as well. The richness, detail (sharpness), color range and ability to adjust these settings end up being so much greater with a Raw file, even though what a Raw file looks like before processing is anything but rich and sharp. As a side note, all of my work that uses creative coloring was colored using the white balance settings in the Camera Raw dialog.
Part of the conversion to JPEG are sharpening algorithms and as a result, the unprocessed Raw file is less sharp. Two things can affect this, one is the brand of camera (Nikon cameras are generally considered sharper, but this is not true across all models) and the other factor is the user settings for sharpening in the camera. Loading a Raw file in a program such as Adobe Photoshop CS2 will automatically apply white balance, sharpening, constrast, brightness, etc… and can even batch process Raw files. I often use this feature as a first pass and then go back and adjust the settings if needed. This is espeacially helpful because even if I did everything correct in camera when I took the photo and my conversion software was able to use the full processing power of my desktop computer, the conversion to JPEG could still trick the camera or my computer and only my eye can produce the correct while balance, constast, brightness, etc…
What software is good to use with Raw?
• Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer for Windows XP (essential for Windows based photographers)
• Picasa (Free!)
• Adobe Photoshop CS or CS2
• RawShooter Premium (recently bought by Adobe)
• ACD See (for Digital Asset Management)
• Portfolio Extensis 8 (for Digital Asset Management)
• iView Media Pro (DAM, recently bought by Microsoft)
• BreezeBrowser Pro (DAM, I also love their Downloader Pro for use with my card readers)
• Adobe Lightroom (beta)
• Capture One
• IrfanView
• DXO Optics Pro
• Picture Window Pro
• the software that came with your camera
• more software comes out all the time…
Considerations
There are a few other issues to worry about when shooting in Raw, such as color space (Adobe 1998 vs. sRGB). I’ve used both color spaces, but sRGB is closer to most ink jet, pigment, and lab printers (the place where I get my photos printed requires sRGB). If you want all 12-bits of color (as opposed to the 8-bits of a JPEG) you will need to store your image as a TIFF.
Some people will also convert their proprietary Raw files (with extensions like .CRW, .CR2, .NEF, etc..) into the Adobe digital negative format (.DNG) to make sure those files will be readable in the far flung future. I have yet to spend the time doing this because I haven’t seen the need. For archival, however, consider getting gold DVDs because the gold lining lasts 50 – 100 years (much longer than the maximum of about 25 years for silver lined DVDs or CDs). Keep more than one backup if your images are important (and keep the second backup at a different location, such as the house of a friend or relative).
When it comes to your photography, however, you are the ultimate decision maker on what is best. I recommend that, if you haven’t, you play with the Raw format. You certainly won’t harm yourself or your camera. In fact, a great test is to go out just to shoot somehting (even just in the backyard or around the block). Shoot several photographs under various lighting conditions using the Raw + JPEG setting on your DSLR (if it has that capability). Take them back to your computer and compare after processing the Raw files. Take into consideration your time in doing so and see if the gain is worth your extra time.


16-bit Vs. 32-bit Vs. 64-bit: What Does it All Mean?
by Guest Contributor

A Guest post by Steve Berardi from PhotoNaturalist
In digital photography, there’s a lot of talk about bits:
• 12-bit vs 14-bit Analog to Digital Converters (ADC)
• 8-bit vs 16-bit color
• 32-bit vs 64-bit Photoshop
But, what does it all mean? Although more bits generally means better quality processing, it’s not always that simple. Sometimes you really need to know the full story before making a conclusion.
Before we jump into these specific examples that are common in digital photography, it’s important to understand what a bit actually is.
What is a bit?
The word “bit” comes from two words: binary and digit. Each bit has two possible values: 1 or 0. Sometimes it’s also helpful to think of a bit as either “on” (1) or “off” (0).
Although one bit can store two possible values, a sequence of two bits can store four possible values: 00, 01, 10, and 11. With a sequence of bits, order matters, so “01″ is very different from “10.”
Each time you add a bit to a sequence, you double the number of possible values, so if you go from two bits to three bits, you go from four possible values to eight possible values.
As an example, let’s say you were interested in storing something that has 16 possible values. You would need 4 bits in this case (2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16).
Analog to Digital Converters (ADC): 12-bit Vs. 14-bit
Every digital camera has some kind of analog to digital converter (ADC) that converts the analog signal captured by the sensor into a digital signal that produces your image. Most DSLRs these days either have a 12-bit or 14-bit ADC.
The bits in this case refer to the number of possible tonal values that your camera’s sensor can capture. For example, a 12-bit ADC can capture 4,096 possible tonal values for each pixel. On the other hand, the 14-bit ADC can capture 16,384 tonal values for each pixel.
At first, it may seem like the 14-bit ADC is a clear winner: it can capture 12,000 more tonal values! But, these two extra bits are not increasing the dynamic range of your camera, they’re only adding more steps within that range. It’s kind of like if you took a loaf of bread and cut each slice in half to make even smaller slices. You might have more slices of bread now, but the size of the loaf is the same!
So, you’ll experience slightly better image quality with the 14-bit ADC, but it’s really just noticeable in the deep shadows and smooth gradients (like those you find in a photo of a sunset).
For more details on 14-bit vs 12-bit ADCs, check out these helpful articles:
• Deep Shadows: 12-bit vs 14-bit
• Smooth Gradients: 12-bit vs 14-bit
• Understanding Dynamic Range in Digital Photography
Color: 8-bit Vs. 16-bit
In most post-processing software, you have the option between 8-bit color and 16-bit color. The bits in this case refer to the number of possible tonal values available to each color channel (red, green, and blue) of each pixel.
With 8-bit images, you have 256 possible values for the red channel, 256 values for the green channel, and 256 values for the blue channel. And with 16-bit images, you have 65,536 possible values for each color channel.
Using 16-bit color will result in some pretty large filesizes, but it’s worth the extra size because with 16-bit processing you’ll significantly reduce your chances of posterization (as seen in the photo below). It’s a good idea to use 16-bit color even if you originally shot in JPEG (which is 8-bit), because the extra bits will help reduce rounding errors when performing common post-processing tasks like Curves or Levels.

For more information on 8-bit vs 16-bit color, check out these helpful articles:
• Understanding Bit Depth
• What is Image Posterization?
Photoshop: 32-bit Vs. 64-bit
Some post-processing applications, like Adobe Photoshop, offer 32-bit versions and 64-bit versions. The bits in this case refer to the number of possible memory addresses. With 32-bits, you can use up to 4GB of physical memory, but with 64-bits you can theoretically use up to 17.2 billion GB of memory (although this amount is usually severely limited by the operating system).
There’s a common misconception that the 64-bit version of Photoshop is always faster, but in reality, to take advantage of the speedup (which is minimal), three things need to happen:
1. You need more than 4GB of physical memory
2. You need to be working with very large images (at least 800 MB)
3. You need to be running a 64-bit operating system (e.g. Vista x64 or Mac OS 10.6)
You might think that 800 MB is larger than you’ll ever work with, but filesizes can get big pretty quick if you’re building a panoramic image, or working with multiple layers of images to blend exposures.
Even if you do meet all three conditions above, there’s still a chance you won’t notice any speed-up at all, depending on the operations you’re performing on the image. Also, keep in mind that many third-party plugins do not work with the 64-bit version of Photoshop.
For more details on 32-bit Vs. 64-bit Photoshop, check out these informative articles:
• Photoshop CS4: 32-bit vs 64-bit Benchmarks
• Photoshop CS5 64-bit vs Photoshop CS4 32-bit Benchmarks
• Lifehacker Guide to 64-bit vs. 32-bit Operating Systems.

Photography Competitions

The Grand Imaging Awards are awarded yearly at Imaging USA based on the results of the International Photographic Competition. Diamond Photographers of the Year and Medalists are honored at the ceremony. The top images in six categories as selected by International Photographic Competition jurors are announced as well, with the top image from all categories earning the Grand Imaging Award!

2013 Grand Imaging Award Winners
Congratulations to the winners of PPA's Grand Imaging Awards. International Photographic Competition jurors selected the top images in six categories from PPA's 2012 Loan Collection. First place winners in each category received a $500 cash prize. And Michael Barton, M.Photog.MEI.Cr., CPP, EA-ASP, F-ASP, this year's overall Grand Imaging Award winner for "The Curious World of Cone Flowers", received an additional $500 award!

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