Poll - NEF or JPEG

[Greg B]

I am reading Thom Hogan's guide, and note his suggested default settings , one of which is NEF. I know that NEF provides the maximum potential for post processing etc, but I was wondering what approach you all use.

So, it is another Poll (I like polls)

[gstark]

If you didn't capture the data at the initial point of making the image, then it's lost forever.

If I don't have it in the first place, then there's nothing I can do to recreate it; once I have it, I can do with it what I wish.

Add to this the fact that changes to NEF files are non-destructive, and you have a win-win situation.

File size is not an issue for me; speed of writing is a minor issue.

[birddog114]

NEF is always shooting mode for all my 3 cams.
Even I don't load curve, compensate any +/- EV with flash and camera.
All the people which I shoot for them they prefered this way so they can do whatever they want to do with their PP, I just handed back to them all the photos of the event and they spend time with them.

If I do some shoooting for myself/ my family then I do use bracketing and +/-EV.

I see NEF is more easily to manipulate then Jpeg in NC/ PSCS, even we had few A4/ A3 prints made out straight from NEF (Out of the camera no PP) via PSCS (resize to A3/A4 with white border) on the Epson 2100 over the weekend.

Writing speed is no problem on the D70 + D2h, it's has better speed on the D100 with no compression in camera, otherwise it's slow.

Storage is not a big problem cos 1.0Gb or 2.0Gb CF card is now cheap and soon I'll have handful of 4Gb CF card to play around.

[sirhc55]

I use NEF for serious stuff (ie client work) and both JPEG and NEF for the less serious work (just depends on the value of what I am shooting)

Chris

[W00DY]

I use NEF all the time... no matter what.

[krissingleton]

nef for paying jobs - jpeg when on holiday or something

Kris

[phillipb]

I try to use NEF all the time but size is a bit of a problem for me because at the moment I only have a 256mb card.

[Bruno]

NEF all the way, i have a reasonable ammount of cf.
JPEG just doesnt have the same level of adjustment.
I find that you can often 'rescue' a picture when shot in NEF

[Killakoala]

NEF me baby, ooh yeah!!!.....

NEF is my negative, PP is my darkroom, my house is my gallery.

[Onyx]

When I first got the D70, I shot NEFs cos everyone and their uncle was spouting off at the potential and the "goodness" of the format. Then I came to realise that I would not better myself as a photographer if I always shot knowing or even intending to fix up things later in post processing. I switched to JPEGs. Been shooting JPGs ever since.

A straight conversion from NEF to JPG in Capture takes forever even backed with multiple gigahertz of CPU power. The D70 is able to process the capture data to JPG within half a blink of an eye - for me, that's tops.

Then, my once in a lifetime trip to Grand Canyon - unfortunately was mid to late afternoon, with bright sun. The unpolarised pics had overexposed skies that marred the contrast of the images. So for Niagra Falls, I decided to shoot NEFs. I only have 512Mb CF cards - 1 in camera, 1 spare. How can only 130 odd pics take up 512Megs?! I had to restrict my shooting - it's cramping my style! Of the pics taken, nearly all could have been converted straight to JPGs, and only 2-3 had wrong exposures that were fixed up post process.

I don't think I can afford the space to shoot NEFs. I know CF cards are cheap nowadays and that should be no excuse, but I've spent too much on this hobby already and I'm not about to spend more.

It also doesn't suit me. I don't see the advantage of it - it only corrects exposure (within tolerances) and white balance. Incorrect focus can't be fixed, compositional changes are identical whether JPG or NEF.

[gstark]

It also doesn't suit me. I don't see the advantage of it - it only corrects exposure (within tolerances) and white balance. Incorrect focus can't be fixed, compositional changes are identical whether JPG or NEF.

Not suiting you is a value judgement that only you can make, and many of your reasons are valid, provided you understand the consequences.

But your statement it only corrects exposure and wb is quite a long way off the mark. while there's several other adjustments that can be made with raw, a most important point for me is the fact that saving of jpg files is a destructive process, whereas the saving of raw data is not.

Every time you save a jpg, you lose some information; I cannot see that this loss is a good thing.

[Matt. K]

Gary
Maybe this is something that could be clarified. My understanding is that you can open and close a JPG until the cows come home and it will not re-compress unless you have made changes to the image. I have read this in a number of technical articles and believe it is accurate. Perhaps if someone with a little time on their hands could write a Pshop action to open and close the same JPG 1000 times...and then compare the image quality, then we could settle the fact with some certainty. It's something I think a lot of people would like to have closure with.

[gstark]

My understanding is that you can open and close a JPG until the cows come home and it will not re-compress unless you have made changes to the image.

Just opening and closing the file would pose no problems.

As soon as you save the file - changed or not - if the application the saves the data (not all apps will) you would be reinvoking the compression routines and thus degrading the images.

Taking that a step further (and working from memory) PS disables the "save" option (and thus prevents you from saving the file) unless and until you've made a change in that file. By way of contrast, Irfanview permits you to save a file at will, and rewrites the file every time, thus causing degradation each and every time that you save it.

Now ... as a very simple example, what about one image, shot in jpg in portrait mode? In order to prepare that image for presentation you might - at the very least - need to rotate that image through 90 degrees. There's your first save, and your first recompression.

If exposure, composition, wb, etc are all exactly what you want, then great; you're done. But let's say we just want to crop it a little .... get rid of some annoyance from the edge ... There's a second recompression.

Of course, you could restart the process with the original jpg, and execute both of these changes in the one pass before saving, but I think that from a workflow perspective, that could become tedious.

Especially if you then decide to nudge the wb a notch or three.

So, it's not quite as simple as just opening and closing a file, and it bears dependancies upon the editing/viewing client that you're using, and what you're actually trying to achive.

My preference (workflow), btw, is to shoot raw + basic jpg, and copy them all to the HDD. I then segregate the jpgs from the nefs, and use Nikon View to browse the nefs. If I see one I like, I'll open it in Nikon Editor (not Nikon Capture) and, if it needs adjustments, try to use the (limited) adjustments NE gives me. 9 times out of 10, they're more than adequate.

I'll then resize, and save the resulting image as jpg in another folder containing just these processed images.

That's exactly the process I followed for the images I posted this week, using the 24-120 VR. It seems to be reasonably quick, and quite reliable for me, and I always still have my untouched nef image should I decide to do something different with it at a later stage.

[sirhc55]

Everytime you save a JPEG it compresses therefore it will degrade over time.

If I use the JPEG format on the D70 I save as a TIFF etc straight away so that there will be no further loss of quality.

The JPEG format has been updated by JPEG2000 which has a better ‘lossless’ function than the straight JPEG format.

JPEG in its own right is only useful as a transportation format for emails or for use on the web.

Purists never resave JPEGs

Cheers

Chris

[birddog114]

Another try of NEF instead of Jpeg, very interesting thought!

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=10769521

[Greg B]

If you open a jpeg to view, closing the image isn't a save.

There would be no reason to save it if you hadn't made any changes.

A number of programs allow lossless rotation of images (e.g. ACDSee)

cheers

[Matt. K]

Hmmm...guys....you all got me thinking. I don't like to think. Now where's my medication? Ahhh! The Merlot should do it! Now for a long and deep ponder...JPEG or NEF? JPEG or NEF? TIFF or PSD? I will follow your threads with interest and learn from the enlightened. Where are you Greg B? help!

[Greg B]

Hmmm...guys....you all got me thinking. I don't like to think. Now where's my medication? Ahhh! The Merlot should do it! Now for a long and deep ponder...JPEG or NEF? JPEG or NEF? TIFF or PSD? I will follow your threads with interest and learn from the enlightened. Where are you Greg B? help!

Matt, stay calm. The Merlot is good. The file format is secondary.

The workflow goes like this...
1. Select wine
2. Open, pour, enjoy bouquet, sip.
3. Sip again, and repeat.
4. See 3.

The other questions can wait until you realise you don't need to think.

Hooray for friday.

[sirhc55]

I look at the formats this way:

Snapshots - JPEG
Clients and my own serious work - NEF

Save original NEF files (just in case)
Convert NEFs to DNG
Work on DNGs in 16 bit mode in PS
Save PP files as 16 bit TIFFs
Convert to level 8 JPEG for emailing to client

You can save as EPS files in PS as well as TIFF but never as JPEGs unless as I stated above

[Glen]

Matt, I can tell you life is easier if you are brainless. Brainless people never ponder on the meaning of the universe or in my case wether nef or jpg is better. I am too brainless to remember to set white balance, so am forced to shoot nef. Easy

[birddog114]

I shot NEF cos I don't want to hear people complaints, my services are just shoot and bring the CF or a DVD with images to them, as I mentioned earlier.
And I come home play around with them in PP with some photos that I like and keep.
I've found NEF convert to *.DNG 16 bits are more convenience for me to PP keep them as my raw files or another word: digital negative.

[Matt. K]

Gentlemen...Thanks for your input. And..Greg B, Thank you...so it's open first? I think I understand.