Shooting RAW and JPG, my thoughts.

[NickT]

I used to shoot this way reasoning that I would have a set of jogs that I could quickly email to clients or use to create a web gallery with and then process the RAWs as needed.

The problem with this workflow is that once you start processing the RAWs then the jags don't match, also once you start editing it can be hard to match up the Raws with the jpgs.

What I do now is ONLY shoot RAW, import the files and edit out any rejects then re-name the RAWS to something like "job_sequence".I'll then go through and do some rough tonal corrections if needed, usually in groups (using the modify command) for speed. At that point I will export JPGs which will have the matching sequential file names and the same (rough) tone moves.

On my Nikons I can shoot RAW to both cards after all, who wants a JPG as a backup?

Just thought I'd through that out there.

[Domip]

I never understood why there's even a posibility for JPG's  in such a camera !
RAW + Phocus, so simple to do... 

[Hassilistic]

Hi Guyz, I am actually one of those in favour of both, things have changed a lot since, but we kept finding ways to keep the usage up, and here's how we worked it!
- Earlier, it was certainly for backup, and more than 10yrs ago, RAW meant nothing special, but rather a pain and a very long expensive learning curve, and many clients angry at you for not making the delivery time.
- Compact flash Cards and many other types and forms of media weren't as reliable, even hard Disks on computers crashed regularly..  But having an additional back up of any kind when that happens, you'll be counting your lucky stars no matter what.
- Due to slow connections, meant that uploading JPGs was always a better alternative (Hey! sports and news agencies don't care for RAW files or the artistry you put in them)  and those type of shooters are the ones that needed to deliver fast, had the most crashes, and lost or misplaced the most drives/cards.
- Due to slower PCs meant that working with what you had forced you to prefer smaller files.

What all of that boils down to is that with time, most of us, did manage to set up JPGs for a shot differently, So I always Had my White Balance in Camera done on my Canon 5D, and I always picked a Scene Profile (Nostalgic & Monochrome my 2 favourites) , and we understood that with JPGs those were unreversible  (Destructive so to speak), so we added a In Camera Sharpening Level, and fixed all the sittings for a perfect output, which for someone like me used to shooting film before, having only 36 slide rolls on 35mm, knowing fully well when a picture is lost its lost forever, I proceeded in the same manner of care and attentiveness to make sure every shot was a winner, and expose as perfectly as humanly possible straight out of the box.  Those pictures were then given out instantly to the wife, client, online service, etc.

All the while, saving the RAWs for a much later visit in a few months, and having a field day going over them in great detail and scrutiny.

I never got around to mastering Photoshop and probably never will, for me it is simply Un Intuitive, my logic doesn't function that way, so that had me continue as I did in the days of film, by making sure everything happened during the shoot only... so the model mustn't have a single stray hair, and makeup done professionally to perfection (absolutely nothing to repair in edits) I still use all of my lens filters and special effects, never needed PS for that.. the setups took a lot longer while on location, but almost very less edits to do when I am back, and that is the whole point behind it, get it right the first time, no guess work.

And now more than ever, you have cameras like the Fuji X-T2, which is spitting out JPG's that put the RAWs to shame.  Makes you wonder.

Thats my 5 cents.

Cheers,

[SrMi]

I've been shooting RAW for quite a while, mainly because of post-processing. For me photography is a two-step process: taking the picture and post-processing it. Dodging and burning, fine-tuning its look is very creative and satisfying. It is art in itself. Lightroom has lowered the barrier to post-processing (easy to learn and use) while offering many creative possibilities.

The hard part of post-processing is not to learn how to use it, but to understand what changes would improve the image.