nikon d80 raw image?

Question

whats the diff between a jpeg and raw image and whats the pros and cons between the 2

Answer 1

RAW - uncompressed data from the sensor. No white balance, no saturation etc. Large file size and you need software to convert from RAW to anything useful. Used by pros.

JPEG - ready to go out of the camera. Smaller file size, white balance and saturation etc can be set by the camera. Compression means the loss of some detail.

Hope this helps. teef_au

Answer 2

Raw (or NEF in Nikon lingo) is a lightly compressed or uncompressed image format (depends on camera options). The raw format for each manufacturer is different.
http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/nef-compression/
Raw format creates a significantly larger image file size. If you need to do post processing, the Nikon NEF format has its advantages because it uses 12-bits per color (JPEG uses 8-bits), compression artifacts are minimal or non-existent, and you can decide how you want to set the contrast curves for your final post-processed image. The drawback is programs like Photoshop still have limited functionality to handle 16-bit/color images (raw falls under this). You need to convert from NEF to 16-bit TIFF. Nikon has a crappy photo editor which can convert NEF to any common format. From there, you can use a decent photo editor, like Photoshop. There is a 3rd party RAW converter, http://cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/ , that works well. Some photo editors have RAW conversion, but I haven't kept up on them.

JPEG is a compression scheme that creates a relatively small file size. You can adjust the amount of compression in a JPEG image which will affect the file size and quality of the image. The consumer camera world revolves around JPEG format, thus photo tools and services will handle JPEG. JPEG works well for many situations, even with a little post-processing. Most cameras have a few quality JPEG settings. A poor quality (basic) setting will create a small file size and the image quality will be noticeably poor. The middle (norm) and best (fine) settings will produce correspondingly larger file sizes and better quality images. For most of my shooting, I use the norm jpeg setting as image quality is very close to the fine setting for the type of shooting I do and the file size is smaller. You will need to run your own experiments to see what works for you.

If you do general shooting and do no or little post-processing, JPEG is the way to go.

If you're shooting for a magazine, doing product photograpy, shooting in an area where the lighting is really difficult (caves come to mind), and/or doing lots of post processing, NEF may be the ticket. Personally, I'd rather be shooting than spending time post processing.

Answer 3

Right, in fact it is useless to save in RAW if you don't plan to work on the picture with a software like photoshop;
In fact the camara do for you a post-treatment from the RAW picture, to provide an optimized picture in jpeg;
If you think you will be able to do a better post-treatment, then use the RAW format; Note that you can store in RAW and JPEG. If you never perform a soft post-treatement, it is useless to save in RAW.

hope this helps.

Answer 4

raw images are uncompressed data and from a nikon d80 will be around 23mb each jpegs are compressed.,
this means the camera disguards around 75% of the image data to make asmaller image file to get more on a card.

raw files can be adjusted more easily to compensate for personal effects or to compensate for exposure errors,also with raw files you have to convert them with either the supplied software or photoshop or capture one or picassa bibble.

raw files give you an extra 2 stops of exposure latitude and when processing you can adjust them to get better shadows and brighter highlights without the image degradation you get with jpegs

converting them this way gives you total creative control of your images as you set the,white balance, colur space (adobe rgb or srgb)sharpening,colour temperature and the option of saving them as tiff files which come out at around 30mb or as jpegs which come out at around 7 mb because the software compressess the image less than the camera.

raw files cannot be printed without being converted to tiff or jpegs,only software with camera or those mentioned will show files whereas jpegs work on all systems

jpegs will be compressed in camera to around 4mb also yas part of the jpeg process you will have images saved as srgb colour space . jpegs can be adjusted but due to the compression you get artifacts(jagged edges and odd colour patches) much more often also you will get digital noise more obviously in large areas of similar colour such as uniforms or sky or grass.

the rgb colour space also has 300,000 more colours in than srgb

raws

pros

higher quality
larger prints
easier to adjust
more colour available
total control of final image

cons

have to be converted using software
can slow camera down
large image files


jpegs
pros

smaller files
print staight from card
more shots per burst
works on all systems

cons

harder to adjust quality
smaller prints