RAW vs JPG

[nn666]

Yeah, I don't question that you can get better results with RAW but the question is, how much better, given the limited dynamic range of the Mini 2's sensor. I did that JPG rather quickly and forgot to do any noise reduction, but it does look better with that applied:
View attachment 116719

The mini sensor is the same size as the Mavic Pro, Mavic Air etc.... Obviously you will get better quality with a larger sensor like the MA2 and MP2 but for a tiny drone it's capable of the original MP or better with better processing etc.

 

[karlblessing]

A major benefit of RAW, on a front which JPG can never compete, is the ability to adjust the white balance.

That's also a major crutch for people who don't understand how to shoot decently consistently. While it's nice to the average user to fix after the fact, it's far from a 'major' benefit in where it is useful.

 

[scro]

The extra levels of colour in a RAW file are on a linear scale, whereas the 8bit/channel colour depth of a jpg is on a logarithmic scale. We perceive light on a logarithmic scale, so the extra information in a RAW file isn't quite as useful as the numbers suggest - still more colour information than a JPG, and some of it may be useful.

 

[karlblessing]

The extra levels of colour in a RAW file are on a linear scale, whereas the 8bit/channel colour depth of a jpg is on a logarithmic scale. We perceive light on a logarithmic scale, so the extra information in a RAW file isn't quite as useful as the numbers suggest - still more colour information than a JPG, and some of it may be useful.

More useful if you're a pro.

 

[scro]

Technically I'm a pro. I've been paid for photography work and image editing. It doesn't automatically mean I know my stuff when it comes to digital photography. ?

 

[karlblessing]

Technically I'm a pro. I've been paid for photography work and image editing. It doesn't automatically mean I know my stuff when it comes to digital photography. ?

Oh I know Not at you specifically just other pros I know in the market. There are plenty of people waaaaay above my 15+ years and double the routine to show it, but then there's pros shooting 20 years (all during the digital age mind you), that still spray-n-pray in full auto, blurring half the shots, and AWB hell, but they market themselves well enough somehow.

I guess it's more accurate to say, if you're an **** retentive geek that somehow needs to take control of every step possible even when the benefits are minor, then raw is for you (which is basically somewhat me too). I don't like the camera thinking it knows better than me about what I want (but shooting a handheld camera fully manual for years, is different than trying to do the same with a drone).

 

[AtortPhotography]

So... the Mini2 has RAW capabilities, and many pilots claim this is far superior to just JPG. Can someone with a Mini2 take a few well exposed JPG and RAW comparison shots to convince me that RAW is really the huge improvement so many claim?

I have a DSLR and have used RAW on that, taking the time and effort to manipulate photos carefully to squeeze out the best detail and colour in stills. My conclusion on the topic was that for casual to keen amateur photography it is quicker, easier and less storage-hungry to shoot several JPGs at different exposures than to shoot RAW and edit in post. The difference between a well exposed JPG and slightly off-exposed RAW was negligible when produced by a prosumer level digital camera. I don't deny that RAW files provide more data to work with and provides greater flexibility for editing later, but I'm not yet convinced that it is as superior as many believe it to be. Convince me otherwise

I am uploading a YouTube tutorial on just this now. Better is a relative term. Better 100% if you expose wrong. Sometimes the JPG can actually look more appealing than the RAW and the in camera processing does a decent job. Bottom line if you have the ability to shoot both DO IT! The files are SO tiny you are better off having both just in case you need a RAW to pull something you can't out of a jpg. YouTube/AtortPhotography is me so will be uploaded in a bit.

 

[karlblessing]

I am uploading a YouTube tutorial on just this now. Better is a relative term. Better 100% if you expose wrong. Sometimes the JPG can actually look more appealing than the RAW and the in camera processing does a decent job. Bottom line if you have the ability to shoot both DO IT! The files are SO tiny you are better off having both just in case you need a RAW to pull something you can't out of a jpg. YouTube/AtortPhotography is me so will be uploaded in a bit.

5MB and 25MB roughly for Jpeg+DNG

Which I don't see a big problem with , considering we usually most likely got at least a 64GB to 128GB card for video purposes. And those can be found for $30 or less for the higher V30 speeds.

I would prefer to just have it shoot straight DNG and no jpeg to spare it some processing, but I imagine that would cause a few support calls from consumers who don't know what to do with only the DNG files.

 

[Scuddzy]

There is a huge difference between JPG and RAW. With RAW files there is a lot more data on the file, allowing you to recover details in the bright whites and black blacks, if you have exposed correctly. With JPG the file is very limited as to what you can recover from shadows. For example, with drones, many images appear here with nice sunsets or sunrises, where the exposure was for the bright sky, but the foreground has lost all of the details and is very dark. It is not an opinion or a claim, it is a fact. If you really want to experience the full capabilities of your camera or your drone you really need to shoot in RAW and lean how to process it in software like Photoshop.

The very next post after yours was this image! I took it and processed in Photoshop to bring out details in the city and the water. This would be more difficult to do on a JPG image. See below before and after.

Dale
Miami
View attachment 116691View attachment 116692

Awesome Miami pictures! I'm about a month into getting/learning photoshop/lightroom/bridge, not sure i have the work flow down pat, Currently, I import/open in bridge (attach key words etc), use camera RAW to bring out details, lightroom to further address lighting colour grading, then photoshop if any areas of the photo need effects or special attention. Is that the correct workflow? Thanks, Josh

 

[PaulDoneDrone]

this is not scientific but here is just a resized jpeg straight how it was recorded by the camera:
btw ISO 400 is usable even 800 looks ok.







Developed RAW, full size has a lot of more details, and I would not be able to pull that from JPEG, close but not 100%

 

[scro]

@PaulDoneDrone Nice photo, and exactly the sort of side-by-side comparison I was looking for . I might be missing something obvious, but to me the resized pictures look to have very similar levels of detail. The DNG has a good bit more contrast so the detail is easier to pick out. I had a very quick play with the JPG (below, for ridiculing and tearing to shreds ?) and sharpened it up a bit to tease out some of the detail and pushed the contrast a bit. The DNG definitely has the edge when it comes to noise, though - especially noticable in the darker areas in the bottom left.

Ultimately the point of my original post was not to claim that JPG is as good as RAW, or that RAW is a waste of time, rather to explore what the actual benefits of RAW are rather than perceived, or ignorantly believed, "because a guy on youtube said it".

 

[Scuddzy]

What a fantastic picture! Where did you launch from? I'm near Toronto

 

[AtortPhotography]

This is the video I made last night on Mini 2 jpg vs raw files....hope it helps. It may be still processing so be patient should be done soon.

 

[SkyeHigh]

Awesome Miami pictures! I'm about a month into getting/learning photoshop/lightroom/bridge, not sure i have the work flow down pat, Currently, I import/open in bridge (attach key words etc), use camera RAW to bring out details, lightroom to further address lighting colour grading, then photoshop if any areas of the photo need effects or special attention. Is that the correct workflow? Thanks, Josh

You don’t need to use Camera Raw or Bridge, Lightroom has all the functionality you need to process RAW/DNG images. You’re also better using Lightroom’s database for keywords etc - it’s way more functional.

You can easily round-trip an image from Lightroom to Photoshop and back if you need to crop or further refine your images.

 

[PaulDoneDrone]

What a fantastic picture! Where did you launch from? I'm near Toronto

@PaulDoneDrone Nice photo, and exactly the sort of side-by-side comparison I was looking for . I might be missing something obvious, but to me the resized pictures look to have very similar levels of detail. The DNG has a good bit more contrast so the detail is easier to pick out. I had a very quick play with the JPG (below, for ridiculing and tearing to shreds ?) and sharpened it up a bit to tease out some of the detail and pushed the contrast a bit. The DNG definitely has the edge when it comes to noise, though - especially noticable in the darker areas in the bottom left.

Ultimately the point of my original post was not to claim that JPG is as good as RAW, or that RAW is a waste of time, rather to explore what the actual benefits of RAW are rather than perceived, or ignorantly believed, "because a guy on youtube said it".

Fair enough, in one sentence: they can both made look good for Instagram, and I can make them look exactly the same jpg and DNG, color grading can be done on both the same way for Instagram. IG butchers literally every photo, it is not service for photographers to display their work if full.
The difference is substantial when looking at the photo on a big screen or in print.

It all depends on who is your audience and you planning to consume content, if work is designed for smartphones, jpegs are fine. If you are planning to get the most out of it DNG is the way.

Another example: A friend of my just spend 1500$ on headphones because he claims there are delivering incredible sound, I can't tell the difference between them and my stock iPhone headphones, and my Bose noise-canceling headphones to me sound 10 times better. He says I'm an ignorant deaf prick, my wife says the same for other reasons. I believe them both, but I will not buy $1500 headphones.

When I take photos for an Instagram update on my personal account or photos I send via emails to my friends etc. I always use jpeg, when I'm going for that Citykillerz shoot I always use DNG.
no right, or wrong, right tools for the job.

Most YT channels are paid gigs that have nothing to do with the product, it is a new way of advertising. 20y ago people watched TV and consumed adds on TV, now it all transitioned to YT. When you watch that guy with 900k followers and he is reviewing MM2 on the first day after release, this is a smart advertisement that looks like real usage/life, etc but in reality, it is garbage useless add. Not a single YT reviewer that post a video on day one said anything interesting because they were told what to say, they didn't lie, it is an awesome product but they didn't say anything that is not on DJI website, they all said the same in the different way to target as many people as possible.
10 y from now or probably less, once people will clue in nobody will watch YT the same as you don't watch TV adds anymore.

DNG contains uncompressed raw sensor data, it has way more info than JPEG and that's about it, it is not better or worst it has more data.

 

[scro]

@PaulDoneDrone The 2x resized pictures in post #50 seem to have very similar levels of detail to my possibly uncouth eye. I'm looking at the lattice of the various tower cranes, for example and picking out the same amount of detail in both files. Similarly in window frames on the buildings, cars on the street on the left of the picture, and the distant lights across the water. Were you seeing more detail in the downsized files? If so could you kindly pinpoint some examples? Or, did I misunderstand, and it is in the full resolution files that you can see much more detail in the DNG vs the JPG? Downsizing the 2 files would tend to mask any advantage one file had over the other.

I take all these YT reviews with a pinch of salt too. When they can only rave about how amazing all the new features are on the drone and gloss over any flaws it is clear they have an agenda to promote the product.

 

[TomSull]

I think you're missing the point. I don't think there's any question that shooting RAW with a DSLR camera gives you much more control over the final image because RAW captures the full dynamic range of the sensor. So sure, it's a matter of preference if you think it's worth the effort or JPGs are good enough. But the question is specific to the Mini 2: Does the tiny 1/2.3" sensor have enough dynamic range that capturing RAW is worth the effort? I'd like to see an example myself, because I have my doubts.

I did some bracketed shots that I used Aurora HDR to put together for both the raw DNGs and JPGs. Both look very good, but the DNG's have less noise in the image. However, the DNG's also suffer from appearing to have a color temperature that's way too cool.

Has anyone done a LUT to correct color from RAW back to what JPG's produce? The JPGs look much better color-wise. Here's a couple of fragments of images to see the color difference.

OR, anyone know how to make a LUT when you have a collection of non color corrected images and a set of color corrected images? It would be great if there's a program that could auto-create a LUT from content such as this.

BTW, I updated the images; I had HDR's the previous ones; these are the original DNG and JPGs.

 

[TomSull]

For comparison, here's a processed version of the JPG file:

View attachment 116706

You can see the additional noise in the JPG image; that's the primary difference I noticed in the non adjusted images, a bit less noise is apparent in the RAW versions of my images. Color balance is decidedly cool in RAW images though (if anyone has a LUT to correct this, let me know). But, as has been noted, RAW is much better to recover image details typically.

Great shot, btw Dale!

 

[PaulDoneDrone]

Or, did I misunderstand, and it is in the full resolution files that you can see much more detail in the DNG vs the JPG? Downsizing the 2 files would tend to mask any advantage one file had over the other.

Exactly, downsizing for Instagram or for thumbnails will mask almost everything, it would only show in extreme examples when you have to pull eg. +3EV or more.

 

[PaulDoneDrone]

I did some bracketed shots that I used Aurora HDR to put together for both the raw DNGs and JPGs. Both look very good, but the DNG's have less noise in the image. However, the DNG's also suffer from appearing to have a color temperature that's way too cool.

Has anyone done a LUT to correct color from RAW back to what JPG's produce? The JPGs look much better color-wise. Here's a couple of fragments of images to see the color difference.

OR, anyone know how to make a LUT when you have a collection of non color corrected images and a set of color corrected images? It would be great if there's a program that could auto-create a LUT from content such as this.

If you are looking to learn how to process the images (color grading/sharpness etc) and how photoshop sees color there are way better forums for it.

Here is a good start, Google is your friend:

Color and camera raw

Find out more about using Adobe Camera Raw to perform photo adjustments before editing them in Adobe Photoshop Elements.

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Adjust color rendering for your camera in Adobe Camera Raw

Learn how to adjust color rendering for your camera in Adobe Camera Raw. Apply and customize camera profiles.

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Set up color management

In Adobe Photoshop Elements, set up color management to achieve consistent color among your digital cameras, scanners, computer monitors, and printers.

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