JPEG & RAW - Examples from Landscape Photography Task

DSLRs have the ability to simply just take JPEG images and be processed from within the camera. While the photographer is in charge of setting the exposure, if a JPEG setting is being used, then the camera will process that image to add blacks, contrast, noise reduction, sharpening and then render the image to a compressed JPEG file format. This is a 'loss' file format, meaning that the file has been compressed.

It is important to understand 'dynamic range' before we talk about .RAW files. Dynamic Range is the amount of tonal range detail from the darkest shadows to the brightest highlight (see notes on histograms in photoshop post). Dynamic Range detail is significantly reduced as compared to RAW.

Edited RAW Image (converted to JPEG)

Unedited RAW Image (converted to JPEG)

RAW files are essentially uncompressed and unprocessed images that retain all of the detail that was available to the camera sensor. One obvious observation is the file sizes of RAW images are huge in comparison to JPEG files.

RAW files, when added to Photoshop, allow a window to edit the RAW image before it is then properly edited in the software. Above you can see examples of my experimentation with the graduated filter tool and the adjustment brush tool. The graduated filter tool allowed me to darken and and show details of the cloudy sky. The adjustment brush tool allowed me to make the trees, grass and buildings in the middle of the image appear more vivid.

RAW files are not always useful, especially if they are just for uploading to an internet blog for example. But for my project I will set my camera to take both a RAW file and a JPEG when shooting for images to be included in my final submission.