Post processing only when necessary?

[Davey]

Nearly all developer software on the comp will demosaic it for you though (don't know of one that wont for my .raf) as this is standard to sensor array type etc it's standardised step. Shouldn't be problem unless you have very rare camera type but even then it will have specialist software to develop it or they wouldn't include the raw save feature if there was no way to process it.

The demosaicing step done by the camera when making jpegs compared to done by computer when doing the same on the saved raw is identical, unless I'm mistaken, since it's a simple step and the difference is the raw data is identical in both cases but in 1 instance the cam records the data for you to manually do it, in the other it does it on the fly and doesn't save the data. However the rest including what colin mentions isn't the same. I'm so glad I ended up choosing raw save capable camera as my intro to digital (as I originally thought it might be more than I need to learn on), the extra processing compared to jpeg processing isn't much. It suffers from less flaws than jpeg pp and is more flexible and my pc can definately do a better job than my camera. Even without flexible manual input the power of comps means you can use more complex algorithms which yield better result (either quality or size wise) as there is no performance/speed/power trade off like in camera created stuff.

Same reason my marantz 660 mp3's are not as good as raw (wave) which I convert on pc. The sound data is identical but the 660 cannot match a pc when it comes to power so it has to use a simplified algorithm to encode on the fly. Cameras are exactly the same, until you get a camera with the power of a pc of the same time the camera generated jpeg will never compete. I know purists might complain and I fully whole heartedly agree that fixing in pp what you could fix in camera is not good practise to get into (although sometimes it's safety net if cannot reshoot and you made mistake). Put rubbish in you get rubbich out. You are ALWAYS governed by the quality of your raw materials in all cases, hence perfectly composed shot can always yield better results after pp than a poor one. It's silly to insist manual development is cheating compared to in camera dev IMO. Raw is not excuse to get sloppy, it's tool to allow greater control, do the same purists complain about knocking the camera into manual too, thought not

[Blazing fire]

Thanks for answering my question!

So post processing algorithms like demosaicing are not applied when saving as raw. This enables greater flexibility in controlling the outcome of the image, and when using the computer to post process, the image quality is usually higher than that of a camera due to its higher processing power.

Am I right?

[Colin Southern]

So post processing algorithms like demosaicing are not applied when saving as raw.

Correct.

This enables greater flexibility in controlling the outcome of the image, and when using the computer to post process, the image quality is usually higher than that of a camera due to its higher processing power.

Am I right?

Kind of - I'd suggest that there are a number of benefits. Processing power probably isn't the main one - I'd suggest the ease of tweaking things (on a big screen, using a mouse - with programs designed for the task) are probably the crux of it - that is until they release a camera with a 24" colour-managed screen and a mouse!

I like to think of the camera as just being a part of the overall system (albeit an important one).

[Blazing fire]

Ok thanks for your patience!