IS RAW BETTER? You may be surprised!

Do you shoot RAW or JPEG? I’d love to know, and why!

I use to shoot RAW exclusively, and realized I was spending the time to try to make it a decent image by color processing it in light room. A lot of the time, the jpg looked better. Then I would move the image into photoshop to do the actual retouching for the client. What I noticed is, my workflow was exhaustive and only boosted my ego not my paycheck. Then one day, I was the head photographer for Los Angeles Fashion Week (not bragging, explaining) and one of the guys on the riser near me was shooting straight to jpg and was getting paid. I asked why, he said the jpg is good enough and better than what his clients (designers, magazines) were expecting. - Right then I realized, I am doing far more work than is needed. --- few weeks after I practiced more on shooting straight to jpg, was fine, and moving into client work, no complaints. So Today, I just do this: * High end commercial work: I shoot RAW medium format in my studio * Simple commercial work: JPG * Model digitials, agency headshots, jpg * Events: JPG What I learned, anyone can tell my why they are superior, why my workflow is no good, but at the end of the day, I shoot for luxury brands, NBC television, and runway and have no complaints from clients and repeat work.

HI everyone. I have been doing photography for 55 years self taught, meaning i did i my shoots with film and hand developing and printing. A lot of what i do has a fast turn around time. From crime photography to news style to action events with years of fun trial and error and always learning. I only shoot JPG and most the time shoot manual mode. My current camera is a Nikon Z5 with a Nikon short zoom 28-75 and a Tamron long zoom 70-300. I don't sell prints, offer time and digital images so JPG are easier for all my clients to see and use. I learned by doing and if i have to spend time in the darkroom i was missing other opportunities to shoot other events. Meaning my life's work is getting the shot right the first time and moving on. If i had to do all kinds of editing that just tells me i was not doing my job and using my camera properly.. Just sharing my opinion, as an artist. I also teach but I tell all my students its up to you and what you do.. thank you

Really appreciate your videos not having any annoying music. And great value.

Perhaps another way of looking at it, is a baked cake (jpeg) vs. a cake recipe (RAW). Add too much sugar (balance) to the baked cake it's a struggle to make it taste good, but if the recipe has the wrong amount of sugar simply change the recipe and bake again. With RAW you can keep tweaking the recipe till it's as good as in can be. On the other hand, it's nicer to be given a cake and simply eat it :-)

i left film school a year ago and i swear its videos like yours here on youtube that make me realise everything i need to know is here. thanks again, simon.

Your channel is phenomenal. Thank you for teaching me so much.

I have shot RAW for years and have worked for over 20 years with Photoshop. There is so much more flexibility regarding adjustments like luminosity masking, frequency separation and many other improvements when you have the RAW file. Nowadays, if you work with 32 bit image versions, there is not even a comparison to what you can bring out in an image and if you use plug-ins like the Nik collection, the limitations of the JPEG files become very obvious. In my opinion JPEGs are wonderful shortcuts for snapshots right out of the camera or to bring the edited end product into the media. Great video as always!

Simon you’ve quickly become one of my favorite photography channels on YouTube! I almost always shoot both but 99% of the time the end images I’m editing are the JPEG files. It’s very rare that I end up editing the RAW image. For me it’s only there as a safety net.

Hello Simon, I really admire quality of the content and correctness. As a programmer, that knows implementation details of JPEG/PNG - I wouldn't explain it better than you in more affordable language. You're doing a great job!

Its extraordinary how well you explain everything in your videos, so everyone can understand it, even someone who is just a beginner and still doesn't know much about photography and all the terms used.

2:41 Sony's 'Picture Profile' is for video mostly, where you can set the gamma and color-space. Sony calls what you're referring to 'Creattive Look'

Thank you! As a newbie to photography you make it easy to understand. Love your work.

Thank you, Simon for being not just a great photographer but also a great teacher. Your videos really changing my thoughts about many things in photography.

You are the kind of creators on YouTube that I love. Spreading useful information which can also help us in our lives and are really helpful. Thank you so much! ❤

Great stuff. Really like how you simplify and do not waste time. Good work.

i love how you find examples to keep the video interesting and relatable. keep up the great content

You have a gentle common sense way of sharing and shedding new light on things we probably already knew, but your way of explaining things is refreshing with no filler. Also, your wildlife photos capture animals personality like no other. If only the animals could see the way you captured their beauty in your wonderful calendar :)

I had like a thousand question on this matter and you left me with a million answers. You are fantastic, thank you so much!

You make some very well informed and compelling content. Honest and straight forward. The many compliments already made are well deserved. Enjoyable content, keep up the good work.