RAW - worth it? (...again) - RAW Shooting and Processing - CHDK Forum
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RAW - worth it? (...again)

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Offline fabri22

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RAW - worth it? (...again)
« on: 20 / October / 2014, 18:29:44 »
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A common opinion here is that it's hard to notice differencies among canon JPGs and developed RAWs.
Honestly, digic procs make a good work in jpg processing, but here are my thoughts:


Larger field of view (ixus115 28mm lens is a 24mm equivalent in RAW(DNG). Comparison with JPG from ixus125 @ 24mm)


ixus115 @ 28mm RAW(DNG) compared with original JPG from camera


JPG from camera compared with RAW(DNG) developed (note shadows and highlights recover) (distortion and vignetting corrected)


Details improvements (~200% enlarg.) in RAW(DNG) developed compared with JPG from camera (note foliage and ship)

Answer: YES.
By developing RAWs you get a lot of benefits. .. and fun. Additional benefits: wrong exposure recover, grain control with high ISO, etc.
By using saved custom development & lens profiles it's not hard to develop a large number of pics with a decent pc.
So, thanks again CHDK's guys !  :)
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Offline koshy

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Re: RAW - worth it? (...again)
« Reply #1 on: 20 / October / 2014, 20:57:46 »
The ability to shoot RAW brings us freedom of expression. RAW images can be edited in a multifold of ways while JPEGs cannot. Without CHDK's RAW feature I'd not own a single Canon compact and would not get one either. What's broken in a JPEG stays broken and won't be fixed. Depending on the scene the differences can be tremendous. If no difference can be observed the RAW converter in use is too close to what the camera does wrong but I'll leave it at that for now...

Sadly the newer cameras employ optics that are designed to have geometric distortion correction as a requirement in digital image processing (to avoid astigmatism which is harder to correct I think) and CHDK unlike manufacturer's solutions (as in micro 4/3 cameras, Canon compacts with native RAW) does not have the geometric distortion correction instructions which use focal length as the deciding variable embedded in the DNGs so that the RAW processing workflow gets complicated by dealing with that. A reason why I personally favor the cameras that didn't use this design.
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Offline koshy

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Re: RAW - worth it? (...again)
« Reply #2 on: 20 / October / 2014, 21:12:08 »
While we are talking about it why not add two more casual photos from the same walk in the forest I took the I980 along for (yesterday) which might be at larger offsets to the camera's muddy colors... III shows why an ND filter can be nice, too as there is no geometric diaphragm shape to ruin that bokeh...
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Koshy had a little ELPH which wasn't white as snow but everywhere that Koshy went the ELPH was sure to go. (actually an SD, but that detail ruins the rhyme...)
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Offline waterwingz

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Re: RAW - worth it? (...again)
« Reply #3 on: 20 / October / 2014, 21:20:54 »
I'm not very good at pixel peeping but the question I always ask myself with these A-B comparisons is whether the color differences could be minimized by also post processing the jpg ?
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Offline koshy

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Re: RAW - worth it? (...again)
« Reply #4 on: 20 / October / 2014, 21:42:23 »
Quote from: waterwingz on 20 / October / 2014, 21:20:54
I'm not very good at pixel peeping but the question I always ask myself with these A-B comparisons is whether the color differences could be minimized by also post processing the jpg?
I can only speak for what I was showing - as I know precisely what mathematic route the sensor data took from the point where I extracted it from the DNG - and there they cannot be. Even if the things that have been done to produce the JPEGS in camera had been done to the RAW in the post, had been kept at the 12 bit precision of the sensor and had been kept relatively dark (as in not driving anything past saturation in any color channel post exposure) there would be no return from that. You can edit but you will not get right. A simple example is setting a way off color balance in camera, paired with a minus exposure. In an image adhering to certain processing rules that could be remedied after the fact. In a camera JPEG that won't hold true.
Where the differences are small one might notice less but the human eye is a pretty good comparison device. We often cannot judge color quality by staring at an image as local adaption and such physiological wonders get to work quickly but given an option to compare you'll quickly establish what looks natural and what does not. The mushroom photo's foliage is a good example for surfaces that are quite different in color and become almost the same due to wrong treatment of color. The same applies for the stones on that tree trunk. In both photos one is pretty much neutral but in the camera's the other colors just won't fall in line.

This isn't a thing I'm blaming on Canon compacts it's a general digital camera situation.
Using a Canon EOS-1D X, a Nikon D4, a Phase One P180 or whatever the same could be shown.
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Koshy had a little ELPH which wasn't white as snow but everywhere that Koshy went the ELPH was sure to go. (actually an SD, but that detail ruins the rhyme...)
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Offline reyalp

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Re: RAW - worth it? (...again)
« Reply #5 on: 21 / October / 2014, 00:16:30 »
Earlier discussion: http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php?topic=10159.10

IMO, it's pretty clear there are cases where raw is worth it, but for normal snapshots the Canon jpeg does very well. Getting equivalent results from CHDK raw can require a lot of effort, and the shooting speed penalty can be a major drawback.

It would be interesting to know more about the workflows people are using with raw: what software, how much manual tweaking you end up doing with each image.
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Offline fabri22

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Re: RAW - worth it? (...again)
« Reply #6 on: 21 / October / 2014, 10:42:49 »
Quote from: koshy on 20 / October / 2014, 20:57:46
The ability to shoot RAW brings us freedom of expression.
The perfect syntesis.
Quote from: koshy on 20 / October / 2014, 20:57:46
.. A reason why I personally favor the cameras that didn't use this design.
The only real alternative way to not deal with relevant geometric or chromatic aberrations is to carry around something like these
(but definitely they destroyed my shoulder  :) ):



... or to buy a nice and light canon p&s, load CHDK and develop its RAWs with the best software around (within a time lapse and a lightnings session  :)).
Quote from: reyalp on 21 / October / 2014, 00:16:30
It would be interesting to know more about the workflows people are using with raw: what software, how much manual tweaking you end up doing with each image.
It took me "some" years to choose the best software for raw developing (on windows pc) IMHO.
I ended up with DxO Optics Pro and Lightroom. The first one cannot open dng ... sadly. So currently LR is my preferred software.
With custom develop profiles (and lens profiles), previously saved, it doesn't require too much manual tweaking for each shot.
Usually i deal just a bit with the shadows&highlights and sharpening cursors if needed.
Obviously with 100 (or more) shots only one or two usually deserve a bit of your time to develop a raw. Canon jpgs will be enough for the remaining 98.
The shooting speed isn't a serious penalty with a fast sd (sandisk ultra are nice cards) or if you're not shooting sport or actions.
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Offline rkomar

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Re: RAW - worth it? (...again)
« Reply #7 on: 21 / October / 2014, 16:16:19 »
Quote from: reyalp on 21 / October / 2014, 00:16:30
It would be interesting to know more about the workflows people are using with raw: what software, how much manual tweaking you end up doing with each image.

I chose to go with RAW because I'm shooting pages of text, and JPG isn't  well suited to the encoding of sharp edges.  Practically, however, the crappy optics in my A4000s blur the edges somewhat, and I'm not sure the RAW images are much sharper than the JPG ones.  The one way they are better is that the automatic barrel distortion correction in the JPGs isn't perfect, and I can do better starting from the RAW images.
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Offline andrew.stephens.754365

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Re: RAW - worth it? (...again)
« Reply #8 on: 08 / November / 2015, 14:31:05 »
Quote from: fabri22 on 21 / October / 2014, 10:42:49
I ended up with DxO Optics Pro and Lightroom. The first one cannot open dng ... sadly.

Does that still apply to chdk dng with version 10?

http://www.dxo.com/us/photography/community/tutorials/optimizing-your-dxo-opticspro-10-and-lightroom-workflow

"Further, starting with version 10, this workflow also works with RAW files that have already been converted into DNG format, so long as the original RAW file is also supported by DxO OpticsPro."
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Offline Marg

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Re: RAW - worth it? (...again)
« Reply #9 on: 18 / December / 2015, 19:11:00 »
An example (left: DNG straight out of the camera, right: edited DNG).


Raising the shadows.
JPEG - dark shadows are actually rendered grayscale and they lack any detail (yeah it's good for file size savings because we really can't see those details in final product, but very bad for editing)
« Last Edit: 18 / December / 2015, 19:12:40 by Marg »
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