Reconsidering JPEGs

Nikon D810 with Nikon 70-200mm f/4 G VR lens; ISO 1250, 1/800th @f/13; 4.86mp crop of 36mp image.
In camera settings: JPEG/Landscape/+5 sharpening, +2 clarity; other settings at default;
additional noise reduction applied in Lightroom but no additional sharpening applied, other adjustments minor as necessary;
Notice the white areas on the brakeman's shoulder of the lime green safety vest.

The other day I thought I would go out and make some images.  There would be one difference.  I decided that I would only use the JPEG format with my D810.  After all, it is a sophisticated machine with a tremendous dynamic range and sophisticated picture controls.  I wanted to see how JPEGs would turn out and if I would regret not using only RAW as I have in the past.

I can't remember the last time I made any images using the JPEG format, so I wasn't familiar with how to properly set my camera's picture controls to optimize color, contrast, clarity, sharpening, etc. As it was a heavily overcast day, and I mean really dreary, I set the sharpening up a bit, the clarity up a bit, the controls to "landscape" and headed out the door. I thought color and contrast could use a bit of help on a day like that.

I used to do a lot of railroad photography in years past and still one of my favorite things to do, when I have time, is to sit out by the railroad (not trespassing and being very mindful of danger), read and quietly wait for trains to pass.  I have always loved trains and used to hop trains on the way home from school when in junior high school (middle school in today's environment).  Really dumb, but most kids do dumb things.  It is when you become an adult and still do dumb things that becomes a real problem!

As I said, the day was very heavily overcast so I thought loss of highlight or shadow detail would not be an issue.  I shouldn't have to worry about losing any highlight or shadow detail in an 8-bit JPEG as opposed to a 14-bit RAW file.

After I arrived at my destination, I then decided to use RAW + JPEG so I could make a direct comparison.  Without an accompanying RAW file, I couldn't very well see any differences.

Same image but a NEF file, set in Landscape mode in Lightroom, similar adjustments, noise reduction and sharpening applied as above; notice the same area of lime green.  I was not able to recover it in the JPEG image above.

I wanted to simulate the circumstance of having to send a JPEG to the web right out of the camera. However, I found that the JPEGs right out of my camera didn't quite meet my standards.  First, they were a bit too dark.  Second, they needed a bit more noise reduction as I was using ISO 1250 (I was anticipating high speed trains on a really dull day.)

In Lightroom, I lightened the images by about a stop.  Is is my fault that the images were too dark to send directly from the camera?  I suspect so.  My exposure should have been more accurate.  I had made some test exposures to gauge shutter speed and aperture, but as circumstances rapidly changed in some cases, I relied on the camera's meter instead.  In the case of the above image, the brakeman on this local freight came around a corner unexpectedly and I just shot by what the light meter in the camera read.  It turned out to be about a stop too dark to be a finished image.

If I would have had my Olympus E-M1, I could have previewed the exposure in the EVF and immediately adjusted exposure to reflect what I wanted the end result to look like. However, I was easily able to adjust the image in Lightroom to brighten it a bit.  Additionally, as I mentioned, since I have no experience with camera settings using JPEG. I set the sharpening higher than default, not knowing exactly what the best setting should be.  I set it at +5, which, looking at the images in Lightroom, seems about right.  The noise was not as subtle at the default camera settings, so I reduced it a bit in Lightroom also.  In the future, I can also raise the camera's noise reduction settings a bit and see how it does in impacting detail in the image.

There are several subtle differences between the JPEG and RAW images.  For example, in the top image, notice the burned out area on the shoulder of the brakeman.  I was able to easily recover the color with the RAW image, but it just wouldn't easily reduce in tonality with the JPEG.  It didn't show up in the histogram as lost highlights, it just wouldn't reduce in luminance and bring the color in the highlight back.  Also, there are subtle differences in color rendering between Nikon's color and Lightroom's decoding of the Nikon file.  Of course, the RAW file had much more dynamic range than the JPEG.  Other than that, the two images were very similar.

What lessons did I learn in this very short experiment?  The difference between JPEG and RAW are not terribly significant, but JPEG still doesn't quite match RAW in, quality, versatility and flexibility. With the exception of the spot on the brakeman's shoulder, the rest of the image could easily be matched in editing.

What I need to do is experiment and get to the point where I understand the camera's controls and picture settings much better.  If you are going to use the JPEG format, it is incumbent upon you to fully understand under what circumstance each setting should be set for optimum output.  I didn't do that and the images slightly suffered.  But, all in all, the JPEGS look a whole lot better than those of yesteryear.

Here are some additional images from that day.  Again, the conditions were pretty miserable when it comes to photography.  These are JPEGS basically out of the camera with minor adjustments for brightness, highlight, shadow and noise reduction.  Color, sharpness and saturation are as they came out of the camera.

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Not very good images, by any standard.  But, a successful test, in my opinion as I was able to gather some additional information for later use.  In the future, I need to make a number of images, under varying conditions with a variety of JPEG picture settings and at the same time make concurrent RAW images.  I would then optimize my RAW images in Lightroom, then see which JPEG settings most closely match my RAW adjustments.

In the mean time, however, I'll be sticking with the RAW format....

Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.


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