Wondering how is everyone is using jpeg vs. raw vs. dng?

[mixedupmacandpc]

hi all, most of my photography of late is to shoot bands for album covers and websites and my workflow for a shoot currently is grabbing the canon 350d and a bunch of lenses, shooting in front of a greenscreen and outdoors, taking 100-200 photos, and then running then all thru DX Optics Pro. The camera is set to hq jpeg. The results are almost always fantastic as long as there is no "operator error."

So my question is, is there any benefit to shooting raw and going thru the extra processing, or converting to dng on capture? In post i am taking some of the best shots from about 1/2 the batch (greenscreened) and keying those, and then taking the best shots from the straight shooting, and usually take those as well into photoshop for some post filtering for effect.

Again, the output is for small print (less then 14cm) and web. I tried a shoot using raw and the file sizes were larger (needed more chips) and the end result was...well, time consuming. I have not tried anything with DNG yet. I understand that with jpg i am loosing a lot of information, but my hunch is that i may not need it anyway, or it's gunna get lost anyway after filtering in Ultimatte and other artsey treatments. What do you all say? Thanks!

[Edited on 8/25/2007 by mixedupmacandpc]

[kiwicolin]

I shoot exclusively in Raw
What, with Aperture, Lightroom and Bridge, there is no extra work in processing Raw anymore.
I love the flexibility I get with Raw: easy to color correct and fix exposure. Also the fact you get a 16bit color depth. (DNG is RAW)

The jpg is a lossy format but at hight quality you can barely see it. If all your doing is shooting for the web and you'll never need large prints, then jpg is fine to shoot in.

[Hermie]

Yep raw for me too! If someone wants the photos to be very quick (the same day) then i shoot in raw AND jpeg (i choose this so i can use the jpg and use the raw for myself!)...but you'll need a fast card and lot's of Gbytes!

[skeptic]

Shooting raw has saved more than a few blundered shots for me. I will never go back.

[MikeP]

I shot my first RAW image this morning (see the "Flagpole" thread in the Photography forum). As should be obvious, it was highly overexposed. Since it was my first RAW processing, it was a bit cumbersome to make the initial corrections, but with practice it should become almost second nature. I then took it to PS for cloning, cropping and a final curves adjustment.

[Edited on 8/27/2007 by MikeP]

[fotodog]

I shoot RAW + JPEG basic.

That way I can post the jpegs to the web for clients in a timely fashion and work on the RAW files as I need them.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE RAW format. Especially with CS3 and the Camera Raw plug-in, it's amazing!!

But like Colin said, it all you're doing is shooting for the web, JPEG is fine. I just like to cover my bases just in case a client (or myself) wants a large print.

[mixedupmacandpc]

interesting...i'll give raw+jpeg another shot as soon as cs3 arrives...

[the1sen]

i shoot RAW. when i shoot in extremely dark environments, i shoot RAW + JPG because i find that the 5D and 30D and 1D do a good job of eliminating noise 75% of the time.

if you don't have it already, you might want to buy Colin's "Photoshop secrets, CS2 for digital photographers" this goes quite in depth on a RAW workflow and could help eliminate a lot of your apprehension as to working with RAW files

the biggest advantage bout RAW processing is complete and total control - even while batch processing. i come back with 5000 shots? i throw them into a folder, get them situated, delete the crappy ones in bridge, and process the rest in ACR 4.0... what an awesome improvement over ACR 3.0

anyhow... good luck.