Tog-Talk
Photographers in conversation: Essential guidance for new photographers on technique and artistic growth. That’s what ‘Tog Talk’ is all about—bringing photographers together to share insights and elevate their craft.
Tog-Talk is the home of UK professional photographer, Kevin Ahronson (Founder of Hampshire School of Photography). Every two weeks he is joined by one of his ex-students (now turned professional photographer) Kelly Perrin, where they'll dive deep into topics that matter to beginners, from mastering your camera settings to developing your unique style.
On alternating weeks, Kevin will dedicate the episode to answering listener questions, providing personalised advice to help you overcome challenges and grow as a photographer. Whether you’re struggling with exposure, landscape photography, street photography, photographing people, portraits and families, macro photography, flash photography, learning about editing with Photoshop or Lightroom, seeking composition tips, or exploring creative ideas, Tog Talk is your go-to resource for learning and inspiration.
Make sure you subscribe, so that you never miss an episode of this engaging and informative podcast.
Tog-Talk
Ep. 36 Is RAW really superior to JPG?
Welcome to Tog Talk, the podcast where photographers come together for insightful and often humorous discussions on all things photography. I’m your host, Kevin Ahronson, from the Hampshire School of Photography, and today, I’m joined by my brilliant co-host, and commercial photographer, Kelly Perrin.
If you’re tuning in for the first time, Tog Talk is all about photographers in conversation, whether you’re a seasoned pro or someone just getting started with your camera.
This is episode 36, and if you’re familiar with the show, you know that Kelly and I meet every fortnight to dive into the topics that matter to photographers. On the alternate weeks, I host a solo episode where I answer listener questions, sharing insights and tips on everything from camera settings to creative techniques. So, there’s always something new to look forward to!
In our last episode together, we had a fantastic conversation about light (Flash vs Natural light), which sparked some great discussions in our Facebook group.
Kelly, I know you’re still glowing from all the natural light love! But today, we’re taking on another subject that never fails to get people talking: RAW versus JPEG.
This age-old debate has been a cornerstone of digital photography, and it continues to divide opinions. Some photographers insist on shooting RAW for its incredible flexibility in post-processing, while others stand by JPEG for its convenience and speed. So, which is really better? Are you giving up too much control by sticking with JPEG, or are RAW files only necessary for certain types of photography?
In today’s episode, we’ll break it all down. Kelly and I will explore the differences between these two formats, weigh the pros and cons, and help you decide when each format is best for your needs. Whether you’re someone who wants to push the limits in post-processing or prefer a quicker, more streamlined workflow, there’s something here for you. We’ll even discuss how RAW files can rescue tricky shots in difficult lighting, but also when JPEG might just be the smarter choice—especially for fast-paced environments or when you need to share images quickly.
So, grab your camera, settle in, and let’s jump into the RAW versus JPEG debate. This is Tog Talk, and we’re ready to help you make sense of it all.
Got a Photography Question?
If you have a burning question about (virtually) anything to do with photography, click on this link. You can record your question onto your device (phone, laptop, etc) and if picked, I will play it during the show. https://www.tog-talk.com/voicemail/
Looking for courses
Want to find out about my live, in-person workshops, check out the Hampshire School of Photography website:
https://www.hampshirephotoschool.com
Hampshire Photography Network
A free Facebook group for amateur photographers who want to connect, collaborate and grow together.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1222685165227144
Contact me
You can contact me by leaving a message via this link: https://www.tog-talk.com/contact/
Hi and welcome. My name's Kevin Aronson from Hampshire School of Photography, and this is a duo. Yes, it's me and Kelly Pering. Hi, kelly, hello, give me that Radio 2 late night FM voice. Hello, I'll buy it. Welcome back, it's great to have you back. Thank you for having me back.
Speaker 2:It's been two weeks and I've missed you. I know I've been to Santorini and everything in between I went to Bogna. I'll take Santorini over Bogna.
Speaker 1:Oh God, you don't live, do you? No, I haven't really been to Bogna and there's a good reason why I haven't been to Bogna. But I can't say on air Only family know why I don't go to Bogna. I family know why I don't go to Wagner. I should stop talking because I'm going to dig a hole for myself. Anyway, let's play the intro. Let's do it.
Speaker 2:Hi, my name is Kevin Aronson from Hampshire School of Photography and welcome to Tog Talk. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0,. All engine running. Liftoff. We have a liftoff.
Speaker 1:Well, here we go again. So this is our fourth together, is that correct? Yes, excellent. I really enjoyed the last one so much.
Speaker 2:The last chat was really good.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was lighting, wasn't it? It was, it was lighting, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was, and actually I really enjoyed reading some of the comments as well on the Facebook group about it, because I am not alone in my love for natural light.
Speaker 1:You are not alone, right? Well, we've got a good one, haven't we today?
Speaker 2:We have I'm excited about today. I've got many, many questions for you which I think a lot of your listeners are going to appreciate.
Speaker 1:Oh, exciting. Yes, Well, do tell what's the subject this week, Kelly.
Speaker 2:So the subject is RAW and JPEG and the differences between them.
Speaker 1:That old doozy, that old chestnut, as they say. Doozy is something you'd hear from an American. You don't hear English people saying that's a doozy, do you? No, you don't, it's very American.
Speaker 2:Very American.
Speaker 1:And I tend not to partake in too many Americanisms, apart from burgers.
Speaker 2:When I'm in America I go ever so posh Does one Very, very British.
Speaker 1:I get totally posh and I snort and I'm not talking coke.
Speaker 2:Well, glad to hear it.
Speaker 1:All right, so we're looking at JPEG versus RAW. It's a cracking subject, it is.
Speaker 2:I wonder who thought of that I'm going to say it was me, but I'm 100% sure it was you. But for the podcast, I'm going to say it was all me. They'll never know, they'll never know. But I am going to kickstart this with a very simple question for you.
Speaker 1:Okay, go on.
Speaker 2:Which is Kevin.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Can you please explain in the simplest terms what RAW is?
Speaker 1:Yes, In simplest terms what RAW is.
Speaker 1:Yes, and because I run a lot of workshops where I'm teaching quite new photographers, often I find I have to do this because they've either not heard of it at all or they've seen it in the menu system on their camera but just don't have a clue what it is.
Speaker 1:So RAW if you don't know, first of all it's spelling it's R-A-W, as in RAW data, it's the RAW data that's coming off the sensor of your camera. So you take a picture, you point your camera at something. A light comes in through the through the lens, passes through the aperture, goes past the shutter, it hits the sensor and it's stored on the sensor as data, electrical impulses, and that raw data is a raw file. So you can take that, put it on your computer and with the right software you can see the picture that was taken. And because it is the raw data, it's the most amount of data that we have of any photograph. So in any other format we use to take a picture, something's been taken away and has been modified, but in the raw data form it's the raw data. It's unadulterated, untouched, unadjusted, straight off the sensor onto your computer or via a memory card in most cases.
Speaker 2:So what you're saying is there are billions of colours, for example, as opposed to a JPEG file, where there are perhaps only a million different colours.
Speaker 1:Ooh, one thinks one has jumped the gun there a little bit, because I can tell you that a JPEG will produce about 16 million colours, whereas a RAW file can produce something in the approximate region of 68,790,476,736.
Speaker 2:So, yes, there we go. Yes, quite a big difference when it comes to data, and I think the terminology that people will be used to hearing is a JPEG is a compressed file.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in simple terms, if the raw file is the raw data off of the sensor, it's the photograph, without any changes being made to it. So there are no alterations to the brightness or the colours or the sharpness or anything like that. It is untouched. But JPEG files, which is what most people start off taking photos with, and, you know, on their phones usually, although not so much recently on Apple. So that's changed. But JPEGs are the go-to standard for image files. If you look at most images on the internet, they're JPEGs, not all of them. And if you send an image to someone by email or you stick it on social media, it's probably going to be a JPEG, and JPEGs are. They're an answer to the problem we had back in the 90s, when the internet was in its infancy. So are you old enough? Now be honest with me, because I don't think you are. Are you old enough to remember dial-up? Yes, you do remember dial-up.
Speaker 2:I do remember dial-up. I'm old enough that we didn't have email and computers in our house when I was growing up, not until I was probably 10. Between 10 and 15 did we get a computer in the house. Unfortunately, I am old enough.
Speaker 1:So for those who are of a certain age, we will remember dial-up, where we use our telephone line to access the internet, and and web pages took absolutely ages to load up. There's a. There was a group of people who were called the joint photographic experts group jpeg that's where it comes from joint photographic experts group and they devised a way to reduce the file size of photographs to make them smaller. In other words, not the images actually smaller in size to look at, but the actual file space they took up on your computer or on the servers that you were uploading to. So when you took a photograph and you wanted to put it on your website, the website was loaded on the internet what we now call the cloud and it was loaded on a server which is a big computer somewhere in the middle of probably america, and it took a long time for an image to upload from your computer to that one. So they needed a way to make that file size smaller and files needed to be compressed in size, and they came up with this file, which they called a JPEG. It's as simple as that, and a JPEG is quite clever in that it doesn't contain all the information that a picture has when it was originally taken. It strips some of the information out and also at the same time it gets adjusted to make it look really good, looking loads of colour and the sort of really strong blacks and whites and so on and at the same time the file is reduced in size. It's compressed, so it looks good. It fits in a very small footprint, if you like. So it's reduced in size and it's easily transportable so you can send it to another computer and these days you can just send it by phone. It's a small file, it's great.
Speaker 1:So the JPEG was devised as a way of making images small to upload via dial-up, because broadband was yet a dream in our eyes. It just hadn't arrived yet and other types of files would be too big and too slow to send to the internet. And people wanted images on their websites particularly photographers makes sense. But almost everybody wanted pictures because just looking at pages and pages of text was boring and if you are that age you remember some of those early websites were pages and pages and pages of text. They were tedious and people would do bold writing, uppercase capitals for entire words, or they'd color them red to give them more impact and it just looked horrible it did we've moved on a bit we have, so bringing it back um.
Speaker 2:most default settings on cameras are jpeG, so for new photographers, what is the benefit of switching to RAW?
Speaker 1:Okay, let me tell you a bit more than about JPEG. First of all because once you understand what happens with JPEG and how we get to JPEG from your camera. So when you take a picture in your camera the data is saved and initially it is a raw file for everybody. But unless you tell the camera otherwise, that data in your camera, off the sensor, then goes through a series of algorithms. It's programmed by the factory. So whether you bought it from Canon or Nikon or Fuji or wherever it was, there's a programming algorithm which takes that data and does a whole bunch of things. It will do things like adjusting the colour, adjusting the brightness. It sharpens the image, it will add some noise reductions, add some white balance adjustment and a few other things which are a bit technical. And then it compresses that file to a level where the manufacturer thinks the picture still looks good, but it's reduced in size. It doesn't take up so much space on the memory card. So JPEGs are really good because they produce great pictures out of the camera. They're a small file size, they're easily transportable and everybody can open up a JPEG. They're universally acceptable everywhere. You'd have to be really hard-pushed to find a computer which doesn't open up a JPEG so universally acceptable.
Speaker 1:Now, why would you want to go to RAW? The RAW data has had nothing done to it. And if you take a RAW file and it's now saved onto your memory card and you put that memory card in your computer and you look at it, you'll need software to look at it. So probably lightroom is the most common one. You'll look at it in lightroom and you compare it next to a jpeg version of the same image. It looks as dull as hell. It looks as if it looks anemic, it looks as if it's it needs to go on a high iron diet. It really does look naff. It lacks contrast, it lacks color, it just lacks any kind of excitement whatsoever. And that's because nothing's been done to it. The jpeg, on the other hand, that looks sexy.
Speaker 1:And the manufacturers, when they they write those algorithms and they program their cameras to produce jpegs, when they write those algorithms and they program their cameras to produce JPEGs, obviously they want images which are so good. You want to buy their cameras. If you bought a really expensive camera but the JPEGs were naff, you'd dump it and change it for something else. So all the manufacturers are trying to produce great JPEGs. But here's the thing, because in the process of shrinking that file to make it small, data would have been lost.
Speaker 1:If you want to then edit the image, you're limited on what you can do because much of the information about the file the colour, the tones has been stripped away. If you try to edit the raw file, all the data's there and you can do loads with it. So Lightroom in particular, but there are other products, but globally Lightroom is the leader by such a long margin is that you can call it the standard, the standard product that most photographers around the world use. It is the go-to product. It's easy to work with, it's got a very easy learning curve and it's generally accepted. That's the one most people have if they're prepared to pay the monthly fee, which is about ten a month, and you get Photoshop thrown in for that as well. So there's your choice as a photographer.
Speaker 1:You have a JPEG which is straight out of the camera looking great, small file size, easily transportable, everybody can look at it, or you use a raw file. You need software to edit it and you take full creative control of what the image looks like. So with the JPEG you've got limited control. There's only so much you can do with a raw file.
Speaker 1:There's loads, and when I say loads, if you've taken a picture and there's a lot of shadows in a picture, with a raw file you can bring out detail in the shadows. Now our eyes can pick that out straight away, but cameras have a very limited dynamic range. Our eyes have a much wider dynamic range. That is the ability to see the detail between the brightest parts and the darkest parts. We can see into the shadows and we can see details in highlights. Camera sensors have not yet got that stage. I'm sure they will do eventually. So with a raw file you've got lots of access to the shadow detail, lots of access to the highlight detail and through editing you can bring that detail out so that note.
Speaker 2:Can you give me an example of a situation where you've managed to save a photo because you've shot it in RAW?
Speaker 1:So I can answer in general terms because this is something which crops up constantly, especially as a new photographer, and it's quite common for new photographers to take images where they've not quite got the exposure right and the things come out dark, quite dark, and being able to put a RAW file into Lightroom and grab that image and increase, and it's effectively like increasing the ISO afterwards If you push up the exposure slider in Lightroom, it's pretty much the same as if you cracked up your ISO so you can brighten up the picture and so an image which otherwise would look quite dull and dark and there's nothing going on, you can rescue and completely transform it. Actually, I can think of one because there's nothing going on, you can rescue and completely transform. Actually, I can think of one because there's one I often teach on. So, um, I run a workshop. Maybe three years ago it was shortly after, um, the lockdown I run a three-day landscape workshop on the dorset coast and I went down some weeks ahead of that with the wife.
Speaker 1:We stayed overnight in a hotel to research locations and our hotel overlooked Corfe Castle. So I'm up at five o'clock in the morning with the camera to get Corfe Castle. I actually walked out of the room we were in and into the garden and I got a straight, clear view of it, and it was sunrise. So this is about five o'clock in the morning, it was sunrise, but corv castle has a reputation of being completely surrounded by clouds. So often it's spectacular. It's the most photographed castle on the planet. It's. It's incredible, and from the right location you can get some amazing shots. But I was taking it from the garden of the hotel room that we were staying in and the mist had descended onto the castle and I could see it and I could see the sun hitting one side of the building. So the sun was seriously low. It was coming out more or less over the water, but the whole scene was surrounded in this orange, muggy fog, which was low cloud, and I thought this is dreadful.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I took some shots and I took them on a long lens. I had a 100-400mm zoom lens on my Fuji. I think I was using a X-H2, I think it was. Might not have been, might have been an X-T4. Doesn't matter, it was a Fuji crop sensor camera with a 1-400 zoom and I got the shot I wanted. But, my God, it just looked like a really misty, old, muggy nothingness.
Speaker 1:So what did I do? I stuck it into Lightroom and I started pushing up the sliders and I got rid of most of that mugginess. I got rid of the cloud with some of the sliders. There's a slider there that has a purpose, designed just to cut through smoke and cloud. It's a fantastic slider. It became my saviour.
Speaker 1:So by judicious editing, I completely transformed the shot and then, for fun, I used Photoshop to put a fresh sky and I put flocks of birds in the sky and I transformed the foreground and the picture looked amazing and I posted it on Facebook and it went viral and there were thousands of people liking it. I thought, jesus, if only they knew it was a fake Anyway. So now I do own up it's a fake and I show this at most of my workshops. So first of all, I show them the picture in its final form and people go, wow, what a great picture. And then I show them the picture that I actually took, which was the worst picture in my library, but it just shows you the potential of Photoshop to rescue a shot anyway.
Speaker 1:What was the question? Hi everyone, it's Kevin Aaronson and I want to tell you about some exciting changes I've made to the Photography Masterclass, my in-person course that's been helping photographers grow since 2019. Yep, this is an in-person course in a classroom, with me face-to-face. This is not online. As we approach our 10th intake in January, I've made some significant changes to celebrate this milestone. January. I've made some significant changes to celebrate this milestone.
Speaker 1:This masterclass goes beyond just technical skills. It's about learning to see the world as a photographer. I've shifted the focus to give even more attention to creativity, with three entire modules dedicated to developing your photographer's eye. It's all about learning to see the world with a fresh perspective, beyond just the technical aspects. Having said that, you will still learn about the key foundations of photography, upon which every other element of the craft is built. I retained the more popular modules on shooting landscapes, photographing people, and there's a new one on black and white photography. This masterclass is more than just a course. It's a creative one-year journey you'll share with other passionate photographers, growing together and forming lasting connections along the way. Need more information? Visit GoHSPcom. That's GoHSP, g-o-h-s-p dot com. Click on courses and select masterclass. I'll also provide a link in the show notes below.
Speaker 1:So here's another example where you can use that ability as a raw file, not to rescue the shot, but to deliberately restore the shot that you take on purpose bad when you take it. So what do I mean by that? Right here we go. So you're taking a shot and it could be a person maybe they've got some blonde hair and the sun's catching it and it's really, really bright or it's an animal, could be landscape, it could be anything where there's a strong source of light and when you take the picture, part of that scene is massively overexposed. So let's say you're photographing a blonde child on a really sunny day and the sun's catching her from behind and her hair is super, super bright as the sun catches it. If you looked closely at those pixels they would be blown out. They're so overexposed that no software in the world can restore them. Okay.
Speaker 1:So one technique is, when you're photographing something like that, is you photograph it to underexpose the shot. It's called exposing for the highlights. So you deliberately underexpose the shot so it's darker than normal, so that those otherwise blown out pixels are no longer blown out, that they're correctly exposed. But in getting them correctly exposed, the rest of the picture goes dark. This is where shooting in raw comes to the rescue. So you put that into your light room and now you push up all the shadows and the darker elements of the picture to restore the rest of the face and the hair of that child, and of course long, so long as you don't push up the brightness of the bright blonde hair. What you then end up with is a properly exposed child with some lovely highlights which aren't blown out, so you're underexposed.
Speaker 1:To start off with and then bring up those shadows in post processing we tend to call it. We bring it up in post. It sounds more american in hollywood when they're shooting their films. Oh yeah, we'll fix it in post. It means in post-processing. A lot of people frown on it, but there are some techniques where you literally do have to fix it in post because you can't take the shot any other way unless you use flash.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Yes, let's not get on to flash again. So are there situations where you would actually recommend sticking with JPEG over RAW, even as a professional photographer?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so you should know. When I'm doing a paid gig, I shoot RAW. When I'm shooting private stuff, I shoot JPEG Interesting. So when I go on holiday, I shoot JPEG, and the main reason for that is when I come back I don't want to have to spend hours editing my holiday photos. I really don't. In fact, that would impact my work because it would take a long time, but that's me. There are photographers who are in situations where shooting JPEG is absolutely the right answer for them.
Speaker 2:Yes, I am one of those photographers Not always. I don't very often shoot in JPEG, pray tell. So one of the sort of contracts that I have is a playground company and I can go into hundreds of schools in a year and take some pictures of their play equipment, which is usually 30 to 40 children running around a playground on play equipment. It's very hectic. I usually have a 15-minute slot and they like a lot of images, so that kind of quick-paced, get as many images as you can. Um, I will always shoot in jpeg. Also, they want a really quick turnaround, so they want those photos the same evening and they'll usually booking three or four schools in a day. So you can imagine in in in a day I'm taking over a thousand photos in four different schools and so for me shooting in jpeg, I don't have to spend any time editing yeah, yeah, yes, um, and of course, by the time you get home, you're exhausted as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah, I've been there, done that. So, yeah, I absolutely agree. There are lots of occasions where photographers are in similar situations to that, where jpeg are the logical answer. So if you're, if you're a sports photographer and you're under a deadline to get the pictures back to the newspaper or the magazine very quickly later that day, you shoot them in jpeg, not just because they're quicker to transfer and they're instant, but because you could be shooting images in high-speed burst and you can shoot more high-speed burst in JPEG than you can in RAW. Because they're smaller files. It's easier for the camera to process them.
Speaker 1:If you're shooting big, huge 30, 40, 50, 60 megapixel RAW files, which are enormous file sizes, and trying to do a burst on them, most cameras will limit you on the number of images that they'll store in their buffer. Your memory card in your camera needs to be enormous. The space on your hard drive just needs to get bigger and bigger. It's memory hungry, shooting RAW all the time in burst mode. So most sports photographers would probably today still prefer to shoot in JPEG because they can rattle off hundreds more than they can RAW and still get great shots because the technology today is so good. If you get your pictures properly exposed, a jpeg will produce a stunning image.
Speaker 2:It will do yes, and I have actually been caught out shooting raw where all of a sudden something's happened and I've ended up taking a stream of photos really quickly and my camera has just stopped stored and it's awful because then you get that panic of I'm going to miss the shot because, I don't know, maybe a celebrity's walked in the room or something's happened and there's been a big reaction and you're waiting for your camera to catch up. It's uh, it's not the best feeling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it happens, you know, and I think that's it's nice. I think, especially when I think that's it's nice, I think, especially when I think back to before I was a professional photographer, I certainly felt if I wasn't shooting in RAW, I couldn't call myself a photographer, and that's probably one of the biggest myths.
Speaker 1:Well, I knew obviously we were going to be talking about this today and, whilst I was fairly confident I could talk about the technical aspects, what interested me was the psychological aspects, because when you have a conversation with other photographers about JPEG versus RAW, you do get quite strong opinions, and that's one of the reasons we're discussing it now, because people have strong opinions and I decided to investigate the psychology behind people wanting to shoot in RAW. And it's the way that people are about wanting to buy or invest in professional level something to demonstrate they're serious about whatever it is they do. So I've worded it like that because it doesn't just apply to photographers. So we know that there are photographers who buy the most expensive gear, the most expensive lenses, the shoot with the biggest memory cards and the biggest computers, even though it's not going to make their pictures any better but it makes them feel better that's the one it makes them feel better.
Speaker 1:It does make them feel better, but there's also a sense and I can understand this of trying to show people that they're serious about their hobby and it also brings them into the club, if you like, of of serious photographers. It kind of says, yeah, I've got all this gear, I'm serious about what I do and I'm prepared to spend the money to buy the best tools. Now this particular psychological trait is called the tall T-O-O-L fallacy, the tall fallacy, and it doesn't just affect photography, it affects just about any hobby. So, as a musician who was absolute rubbish, I bought the most expensive guitar I could afford, if you're into guitars. For my midlife crisis.
Speaker 1:I bought a Martin acoustic. Martin makes one of the most expensive acoustics on the planet. And I bought a Fender Stratocaster American, but I didn't buy the normal one. I paid extra for the super special one with all the gadgets on it. But I'm a crap guitarist. You look at all the guys who go out and take cycling up for a hobby and they'll spend four and a half grand, ten grand, on a bike and they just go out on a weekend. Or let's take another hobby, home gym and you know you get a bike, and then you'll get the weights, and then you'll buy one of those bikes called A cross trainer.
Speaker 2:Pelotron, oh, a Pelotron, yeah.
Speaker 1:So people start investing in the most expensive training gear at home because they think it's going to make them more physically fit. It doesn't matter what the hobby is. As a species, that's what we do because it identifies us as a group, as someone who's serious. We want to be identified as being serious and so, going back to RAW, I think there's a bit of that in the psychology for some photographers. I'm not going to say everybody's like that, because there is a genuinely good case for shooting with RAW. The one thing that you learn the longer you're involved in any hobby or my case, hobby stroke profession is that there is no simple answer. When someone says why do I shoot raw or jpeg? What should I do? There is no simple answer. The the answer is, as is in almost every question I get asked. Guess what?
Speaker 2:it depends so what are some of the common mistakes that beginners make when they're shooting in raw, and what can they do to avoid them?
Speaker 1:I don't think it's the shooting of raw. That's the problem. It's the editing skill.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The tool fallacy argument is very interesting because it talks about how people will often buy the very best or shoot with the best software or raw files, in our case on the basis that that's what professionals do, and so they're spending money on gear and software without actually investing the time and or money in learning how to operate everything properly. So they're relying on technology to produce their images rather than their skill level. So when a newcomer starts shooting RAW, shooting RAW won't make their pictures better. In fact, it'll probably make them worse until they've mastered editing skills. Because with jpeg the camera creates a great photo.
Speaker 1:With raw, you've got to create a great photo. It's down to you to apply your creative eye to that image. You've got to take a very bland photograph with virtually no colour in it and no contrast in it, and you've got to sex up that image. You've got to know how to rescue that image and turn it into something people will want to look at, and you just can't do that overnight. It takes months and years of practice. There's a pause there for effect.
Speaker 2:So we don't just have raw images and JPEG. For those people that use Photoshop or Lightroom or any of the other post-editing software, you have the option to export into other types of files. Let's talk about that for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is another episode on its own, but very briefly, and let's just stick to some of the more common ones, one of the better alternatives to JPEGs is a PNG file. That's png Portable network graphics. That's what it stands for. That'sa really nerdy thing, and a png file has a number of advantages over jpegs. One of them is that you can use a transparent image. So if you wanted to use it, if you created a picture of your kid, for instance, and you wanted to post that kid over a background of a beautiful mountain range, you can cut the kid out on Photoshop with a transparent background created as a PNG file and that child could then be posted over the mountains. It probably works better in terms of graphics on a website, where you can have a transparent background behind a person or behind your guitar or whatever it is, and you can superimpose that over something else and only that person will appear, not the background behind them. The rest has been rendered as a transparent background. So transparency in PNG files is quite helpful, and you can also create layers in png files where you can save layers in png files. But I guess one of the biggest advantages that png files have over jpegs is that the image quality is better and doesn't deteriorate with additional savings. So here's the thing that a lot of people don't know about JPEGs If you have a JPEG image and maybe you do some editing on it and then you save it, that process of saving it does the same thing again to that file as it did the first time it was saved.
Speaker 1:It reduces some of the information. So, in other words, every time you save a JPEG, the process takes some of the data out of the file. If you do it enough times, the picture starts degrading. So a JPEG should not be saved again and again and again and again, because you actually end up with a picture which looks more and more rubbish. That doesn't happen with a PNG file. Disadvantage of a PNG file it's a larger file size than JPEG, but you can still upload PNG files onto the internet. You can still display PNG files onto the internet. You can still display PNG files on websites. It's a loved format with a lot of history and it has some significant advantages. But there are other, now newer files which are coming in, which have been around only a few years, relatively speaking, which are offering even more exciting things. The other one which most people have heard of is a TIFF. You heard of a TIFF.
Speaker 2:I have heard of a TIFF, but I've never really understood what it is. I've never really used a TIFF.
Speaker 1:Okay, so TIFF is. T-i-f-f is a tagged image file format. See, I'm about as nerdy as they come.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm very impressed, Very impressed.
Speaker 1:Oh God, I was taught this stuff back in the late 90s. I was working for a charity and we wanted to run a website. So we had someone come in and spend a couple of days with me and all this stuff's coming from that. So a TIFF is a really high quality image. There is no image quality loss when you produce. A TIFF is a really high quality image. There is no image quality loss when you produce a TIFF. So when you save a TIFF, you can save it in such a way that you can reduce the file size, but in a way, what is called lossless it doesn't lose any data. You can actually do lossless or you can do lossy. That's good. A lossy, you can lose data and a lossless doesn't. Now we're getting into super nerd. Okay, I'm going to get a super nerd T-shirt.
Speaker 2:I'm going to get that for you for Christmas.
Speaker 1:Can I have a cape as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And can I wear my pants on the outside?
Speaker 2:No, well, maybe with Linda, not with us.
Speaker 1:Am I going to keep that in? Yes, I forgot what I was saying now, anyway. So a TIFF file was devised to produce an image that hasn't lost quality, doesn't lose quality and in fact produces incredibly high detail, and it tends to be used by printing companies. So if you were, say, you were, producing a book or some illustrations for a catalogue or a brochure for a holiday company, the printing company would much prefer you sent them a TIFF, because the data that comes across in the image file is huge. It's pretty much close onto that that comes in in a royal. There's no loss of data. So it is. It's a fantastic way to produce a superb, high quality image, and if I was working for an advertising company and I wanted images which just look stellar on a big poster, I'd produce it as a TIFF, because there's no loss of data and you don't lose data every time you save it, which you do with a JPEG. So a TIFF is the highest possible level of detail quality. It's right up there with raw.
Speaker 2:I wish I'd known that years and years and years ago, when I was doing the photography for fleet panto, because, um, we did billboards around fleet and I was just sending them jpegs, wow I'm learning.
Speaker 1:Big file sizes are huge. Yeah, huge, huge, huge file sizes. Yeah, they tend only to be used by companies which have got big computers with massive hard drives, because the space they take up is massive amazing, so I just have.
Speaker 2:I have one more on uh, on jpegs, which I've never asked anybody and I could just go home and google it. But you seem to be the uh, the oracle of file formats the jedi master yeah, so I'm gonna ask you just because there are no silly questions and someone else might be thinking it. When I export my images, more often than not I'm given the option for a jpeg, but there's also a second jpeg option. Do you know what I'm talking about? Jpeg 2000?
Speaker 1:yes, tell me about that launch were the same people the joint photographic experts group in the year 2000, as a way to produce a jpeg product that was um smaller in file size, that compressed but didn't deteriorate quite so much. It had some other cool stuff as well, but it never really took off. Um and um, despite it really offering so much more than the original JPEG, no one really adopted it. It's been a bit of a failure when it has worked. This is interesting. The compression routine that they use to shrink it down without losing data is used in the cinema industry. When you go to the cinema, you go to the movie house, the local view or the Odeon and you're watching a digital projection on the screen. The format they use is JPEG 2000.
Speaker 2:Wow, you really are the oracle. What I love about these podcasts is I go straight back into student mode, and I don't know whether it's because we're sitting in the room that I had my year mentoring with you, but I just I love it. I feel like I can ask you anything, and and and I don't feel silly. So thanks for that my absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1:Does that bring us to an end?
Speaker 2:I think it might well.
Speaker 1:Thanks again for coming over. Thank you for having me looking forward to two weeks time. Do I can't remember what we're doing, can you did? Did you look on the spreadsheet? We've got a spreadsheet. We've got a very fancy spreadsheet. We've got a year's worth of subjects on a spreadsheet. That's how organised we are.
Speaker 2:Well, that's how organised you are. I can't take credit for that.
Speaker 1:Well, you looked at it and agreed I did yes, there you go.
Speaker 2:Oh, what is the next one?
Speaker 1:I've just remembered what it is. Yes, he says looking at it on the screen yes, oh, my goodness, this is going to be a corker, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It is. This is one of these. I'm going to be really honest now and it might lose me a little bit of respect from fellow photographers, but I don't care, because I feel like I'm going to be really honest now and it might lose me a little bit of respect from fellow photographers, but I don't care because I feel like I'm here representing the less tech savvy photographers in the world.
Speaker 2:Um, and also I think I've mentioned before I'm dyslexic, and this subject is one that doesn't matter how many times I'm told about it. I just do not retain the information. So this is going to be interesting. I'm going to have a lot of questions and I need you to find a way to explain this.
Speaker 1:Let's not tell them.
Speaker 2:No, we won't, but I need you to find a way to explain this so that I'm going to retain it. Yeah, I kind of get it. I get this so that I'm going to retain it. Yeah, I kind of get it. I get the concept.
Speaker 1:I just can't explain it, and it's constantly changing, which doesn't help. Now there are people listening to this and are thinking what the are they?
Speaker 2:talking about. Put your guesses in the comments below.
Speaker 1:Yes, we can say so, we're not talking for the next session, because that'll be another one of my solo sessions. Why answer a question from the listeners? This is going to be in two weeks time. Yeah, yeah, kind of looking forward to that.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go straight back into student mode. Oh yeah, again.
Speaker 1:So I can tell you now, before the listeners know what we're talking about. I have every not sympathy. I have every empathy with you on what I perceive your position to be on this, because I think, in my heart of hearts, my allegiance is more with your point of view than what the current point of view is globally. Okay, good, all right, and there were lots of reasons for that, which I'll be happy to talk about. Kelly, absolutely brilliant session. Thank you so much, Thank you. So I think it's about time to say goodbye, and it's goodbye from Tog Talk, which is myself, kevin Aronson.
Speaker 2:And me, Kelly Perrin.
Speaker 1:It's goodbye from me.
Speaker 2:And it's goodbye from me.
Speaker 1:Bye, hi. This is Kevin Aronson and I'd like to invite you to something really quite unique. It's called A Photographer's Evening. For the last six years, I have held small in-person roundtable gatherings with local photographers who are new to Hampshire School of Photography. The evenings are completely free and they are a great opportunity to talk about photography, share advice and network with other like-minded people. These evenings are designed for photographers who are still early in their photography journey, those who have never attended before any of our workshops and aren't professional or semi-professional photographers. Over the course of the evening, we'll dive into various photography topics and you'll have a chance to submit your own photos for review if you'd like. It's a relaxed, friendly setting where you can explore your progress, ask questions and gain loads of valuable insight from someone with decades of experience. If you're interested, head over to the GoHSPcom website to learn more. I'll post a link in the show notes below.
