Shooting Jpeg Only for 6 months!

Yeah, I know - the Jpeg vs Raw debate is about as old as Canon vs Nikon - and about as interesting (not). Any photographer worth their salt will tell you that you should only ever shoot in Raw, and if you absolutely HAVE to have a Jpeg (for some bizarre reason), then shoot in Raw + Jpeg (and then throw the Jpeg away).

I'm one of those photographers, to be honest. I've pretty much only ever shot in Raw since picking up my Nikon D70 sixteen years ago, and have never really understood the Raw + Jpeg argument. If you've shot Raw, what on earth would you need the (inferior) Jpeg for? Ok - maybe sports photographers had a case for shooting jpeg once upon a time (when cards were measured in Megabytes and not Gigs). But for 99.99% of the rest of us, just shoot Raw. Job done.

But... (isn't there always a but)... more recently - and I mean only in the last few years - the allure of shooting Jpeg-only has been brewing. More and more 'serious' photographers have been extolling the virtues of using Jpegs SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera) because the manufacturer's Jpeg processing engines inside their cameras are just so good! The rise of mirrorless cameras, where you can actually see your exposure (and tweak the highlight and shadow areas) before taking the shot, has helped hugely to light a fire under the 'shoot Jpeg only' brigade. Expose carefully, use a creative filter, and have the camera process it for you. Job done.

Shipwreck, Cobden Beach. Fuji X-E2 Jpeg (edited)

About a year ago, I moved over to using the Fujifilm system - namely the X-E1 and X-E2. I've absolutely fallen in love with the ergonomics, handling, and IQ from these range-finder style APS-C cameras. But if I'm honest, the main reason I wanted to try out the Fuji system - and the main reason I'll probably stay in the Fuji ecosystem for a very long time - are their film simulations.

I grew up using film, and still shoot with film cameras from time to time (see my recent posts on choosing a 35mm film system). So moving to a digital camera, from Fujifilm, that shoots with film simulations like Velvia, Provia and Astia, was almost a no-brainer! In fact, I'm not quite sure what's taken me so long to be honest?

But... (there's that but again)... the film simulations are only applied to Jpegs. Not surprisingly, the Raw files are left untouched. No problem - I hear you say. Just shoot Raw + Jpeg and have the best of both worlds. A Jpeg with the film simulations applied, and a Raw file that you can tweak and torture to your hearts content in Lightroom or Photoshop. And yes - thank you - that's exactly what I've been doing. Job done.

Or is it? Because a very large part of me isn't really very happy with this solution. I've always thought, as mentioned earlier, that shooting Raw + Jpeg was rather redundant. And I still do think that. I hate coming back from a shoot with 100 photos - only that's now 200 because I shot in two file formats, one of which I know I'm probably never going to use! In the past, that 'redundant' file was the jpeg. Now that I'm shooting with the Fujifilm, and utilising film simulations, the redundant file is - well - the Raw file!

Proud grandparents. Fujifilm X-E2 Mono (no editing)

I've toyed (briefly) in the past with shooting Jpeg-only when I was using Olympus gear. The Olympus Jpegs are known for being excellent SOOC, so I tried to go Jpeg-only with them for a while. Didn't last long through, since I wasn't really excited about their existing creative filters.

With Fujifilm, however, their film simulations are 'next-level'. On their own they are fantastic. But there's more! You can actually build your own 'custom' film recipes and programme them into seven slots to recall and use them instantly. There are many custom recipes on-line - most famously on Fuji X Weekly, a blog run by film recipe expert Ritchie Roesch. This means that you can pre-programme film 'simulations' like Kodachrome 64, Kodak Tri-X and Agfa Optima into you camera and switch between these 'looks' as the mood (or scene) dictates. For a die-hard film shooter like me, this is absolute photography heaven!

For example, at the moment in my X-E2 I have; Ektachrome 100SW, Fuji Acros, Kodachrome II, Kodak Tri-X, Fujichrome Sensia 100, Kodak Ektar 100 and Kodak Portra 400 all programmed into my custom film simulation settings. I can flick between them almost instantly, get seven different 'film' looks SOOC, and have minimal editing to do once I get the image home.

So I've decided to 'bite the bullet' and shoot Jpeg-only for the next 6 months at least. Seriously. No cheating. No Raw + jpeg 'just in case'. It will be film simulation Jpegs only for the next six months. Sounds a bit scary. And for a die-hard Raw shooter, it is a bit scary. But modern Jpegs - well exposed modern Jpegs - are surprisingly editable. And If I'm happy with the film simulations, there shouldn't be much - if any - editing required anyway?

As someone who is more than happy shooting film - I think I'll handle Jpeg-only digital capture for six months. Who knows, I may even go longer?

Olympus Viewer 3 vs Corel AfterShot Pro 3

The great thing about deciding on new software is that you can usually download a fully functioning trial for a month to 'try before you buy'. In my last two posts, I pitted Olympus's free RAW conversion software - Viewer 3 (OV3), up against Adobe Lightroom CC (version 2015.4). I was, and still am, impressed with Olympus's proprietary software, and believe it gives a superior result with less effort, especially in colour accuracy.

But for all its good points, OV3 isn't the slickest software on the planet. It's reasonably intuitive, but very slow, clunky, and lacks a lot of the more refined selection and adjustment options of other products. So I wanted to try a few more options for RAW conversions before settling on my programme of choice.

I should also re-state for the record that the whole purpose of this search was to move away from being reliant on the subscription-based software plan that Adobe now enforces on users. Yes, it has its supporters. But I'm not one of them. So I would like to find something else that I can use/purchase outright. Of course the great benefit of OV3 is that it comes free with my camera. You can't get much cheaper than free - right?

At $95NZ currently for Corel's Aftershot Pro 3 (AP3), it won't break the bank for a fully featured RAW conversion solution. If I remember correctly, Corel purchased Bibble, and this formed the basis of Aftershot? Many complained that Corel didn't really do anything with the software other than repackage it, and has let it languish for quite a while. AP3, however, is a fairly new release. And may signal a serious intention by Corel to really go after Adobe in the Photography software sector?

Indeed, Corel are marketing AP3 as the world's fastest RAW photo editor - up to 4x faster than Adobe Lightroom. They also highlight its compatibility with Adobe Photoshop, as well as their own PaintShop Pro. Corel are a very respected name in the graphic industry. I started out using CorelDraw before Adobe's Illustrator and InDesign became the industry standards, and PaintShop Pro looks like a serious contender against Photoshop. So they are no slouches when it comes to software development, and I had high hopes for AfterShot Pro 3.

Corel's AfterShot Pro 3 Tiff on the left and Olympus Viewer 3 Tiff on right

The UI for AP3 is very impressive - clean, quick and fairly intuitive to use. It reminds me less of Lightroom and more of Apple's Aperture (which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned). For the purposes of this test, I simply opened the Olympus .orf RAW files in AP3 (by pointing them to the correct folder on the HDD), and then saved them out as a 16 bit Tiff file with no modifications to the file whatsoever. I then opened them in OV3's Lightbox so I could compare the AP3 file against the OV3 file side by side.

Immediately noticeable between the two files is the warmer colour cast apparent in the AfterShot Pro 3 file. I call it a 'cast' because I believe the Olympus file to be a more accurate representation of the colours in the scene. It's not horrible - just noticeably more warmer/yellow in the AP3 Tiff. This bias towards warmer, reddy/yellow colours was to continue through all the AP3 files when compared to the Olympus (and Lighroom) conversions.

AfterShot Pro 3 on left, Olympus Viewer 3 on right. The 'warmer' colour cast in AP3 is evident.

The warm cast is very obvious when looking at the example above. AP3 makes it look (and feel) like it was taken on an early autumn morning, when in reality it was taken on a cold winters afternoon. The colours in OV3 are a far more accurate representation. Even the white of the boat looks 'cleaner' in the OV3 rendered file.

What's perhaps not as apparent is the lack of sharpness in the AfterShot Pro 3 files. I've already talked about the sharpness that Olympus dial into their conversions by default (see previous post), so I made sure that I was using the OV3 files that had -2 Sharpening, -2 Contrast and -2 Saturation applied. This brings the OV3 files almost exactly in-line with the Lightroom files in terms of sharpness. The AP3 files, in comparison, look very soft - almost to the point of being blurry. Now some may argue that this is exactly how an unedited Tiff should look - with absolutely no sharpening applied whatsoever. I'm sure they would sharpen up nicely in Photoshop (or in AfterShot Pro 3 itself).

AfterShot Pro 3 on left, Olympus Viewer 3 on right.

Above is a good example of the differences between the two programmes indicated thus far. The AP3 file is leaning heavily towards the warmer colours, and is 'soft' in comparison to the Olympus Viewer 3 Tiff. Yes, I'm sure you could tweak the AfterShot settings to get the conversion looking much more like the Olympus file, but I'd rather just start there in the first place. The OV3 file is where I would want to end up eventually anyway.

AfterShot Pro 3 on left, Olympus Viewer 3 on right.

What sold me on OV3 over Lightroom was the extra detail and 'truer' colours I was getting with Olympus in the above sunset shot. As you can see, it's an awful lot closer when we compare the AP3 colours. Although it's also not really surprising, since we've seen an obvious colour bias with AfterShot Pro 3 towards the warmer yellows and reds. I like both renditions, but I would still give the edge to OV3. There's just a bit more detail evident in the yellow highlights - although that also may be due to the lack of overall sharpness in the AP3 file.

Overall, AfterShot Pro 3 is a RAW conversion editor that I could easily live with. Especially if a profile could be saved that applied some sharpness and a touch less warmth by default. But then we'd be back to where we wanted to be with OV3 - the free programme that comes with my camera. I know I keep coming back to that, but it really is worth repeating. Check out the software that comes with your camera (whether it's Canon, Nikon, Olympus etc). It's yours, it works (albeit sometimes rather slowly), it will save you money, and it will probably even give you superior results.

The hunt for a 'better' RAW Conversion editor continues....

Olympus Viewer 3 vs Lightroom CC Part 2

Since my last post on the comparison between Olympus Viewer 3 and Lightroom CC, I've done a little more research into OV3 (Olympus Viewer 3).

It appears that Olympus are applying a decent amount of sharpening and noise reduction to the file once it's output - even if the software settings are all set to '0' or Off. Olympus's jpegs are praised by many as being some of the best out-of-camera jpegs in the industry. Sharp, contrasty, and with great colour. It would appear that the software developers for OV3 want to make sure you get these same results when outputting from an .orf  RAW file, even at the '0' or Off settings.

So I decided to repeat the comparison, but this time I dialed in -2 Sharpness, -2 Contrast, -2 Saturation, and set the Noise Reduction to 'OFF' (from 'As Shot' - even though NR in the camera is, in fact, set to 'OFF').

Lightroom CC on right, Olympus Viewer 3 on the left.

So what's the verdict now? Well, on the sharpness front, things have definitely evened out by setting OV3 to -2 Sharpness. In fact, I'd say that now the Lightroom Tiff is maybe just a 'hair' sharper - maybe. Contrast and Saturation are also now about the same. But I have to say that I still prefer the Olympus colour rendition. Once again, it looks slightly 'truer' to my eyes.

The other difference that still remains between the two is the noise - or at least the lack of it in the Olympus Viewer 3 generated Tiff. Noise is still cleaner compared to Lightroom CC's conversion, so either Olympus are ramping up Noise Reduction regardless of what you set as the user - or they really do have the secret to their own 'special sauce' contained within the .orf file. I like to think that it's the later of the two?

Lightroom CC on right, Olympus Viewer 3 on left.

But at the end of the day, it's still the colour rendition from OV3 that stands out the most. And it's the above sunset shot comparison that is still the most telling (for me at least). With most settings dialed down to their lowest (-2) in Olympus Viewer 3, Lightroom CC and OV3 Tiffs are very close - except for their colour rendition. I happen to prefer the way OV3 renders the colour from the RAW file. I think it's a truer representation of what I was actually seeing when I took the photograph.

So given that a simple 'flattening' of the OV3 Tiff file is all it takes to bring it in-line with Lightroom CC - but that I find the colours more pleasing from Olympus Viewer 3 - then I still think it's a win for Olympus.

Besides - this all assumes that I want my Tiffs to start out looking like Lightroom's slightly flatter conversion. What's wrong with starting with sharpened, noise-reduced, colourful, contrasty Tiffs from your RAW processor? I know I can always dial down all these settings if I need to. But 99% of the time it's what I want my photos to end up looking like anyway.

I've always been the kind of photographer who tries as much as possible to get it 'right' in camera. I rarely spend more than 5 minutes editing any image, and that includes cropping. I crop 'in-camera'. A sharpened, colourful, noise free Tiff suits me just fine. I only ever do very basic edits to my RAW files before saving it out to a Tiff or jpeg, so the controls available from OV3 also suit my needs perfectly. Once I have the Tiff, I'm going to do final edits in something else anyway. So the OV3/Tiff/Photoshop workflow makes a lot of sense to me personally. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

I would also finish this off by reiterating the whole purpose of this comparison. I wanted to see if Viewer 3  - the FREE software supplied with my camera - was a worthy consideration when placed up against the industry standard Adobe Lightroom. The fact that there really is hardly anything in it - and that I actually prefer the files that are coming out of OV3 - speaks volumes for the manufacturer's software. When it comes for free and the results can be this good, what's not to like?

Olympus Viewer 3 vs Lightroom CC

I used to be an Aperture 3 user on the Mac. I preferred the Aperture user experience over Adobe's Lightroom, but alas, as we all know, Aperture is no more. So I've switched to Lightroom - right?

Well no, actually. I have played around a bit in Lightroom, and I 'own' it as part of my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. But I don't actually have it installed on my computer at home - although it is installed on my machine at work.

Having been an Aperture user, I'm obviously not adverse to taking the less popular option when it comes to software. My workflow consists of Adobe Bridge and Camera Raw, with the final edits in Photoshop - all through my CC subscription. At the moment, I'm lucky enough to have the entire CC collection for a student rate. But that will end next year. And then I have some serious decisions to make. Because there's no way I'm going to pay Adobe around $50NZ a month to rent their software! No way.

I could go down to the 'Photography' package of just Photoshop and Lightroom for about the same as I'm paying monthly at the moment for the whole suite - but I really want to have InDesign, Illustrator and Premier as well - which bumps me back up into that $50 a month bracket. Damn.

So what's a man to do? Well if he's me, he starts looking around for alternatives. Cheaper (in the long run) alternatives. And they're out there. Adobe isn't the only kid on the block anymore.

When you're looking for 'cheaper' alternatives for a RAW converter, the first place you should really look is the manufacturers own software. After all, it comes with your camera. You don't get much cheaper than free folks!

Hang on though. Surely that means that it can't be very good? It'll be slow, and clunky, and produce fairly average images? If, like me, you thought that would be the case, then you'd be right - about two of those three assumptions. Yes, Olympus Viewer 3 is slow. Sometimes painfully slow. And yes, it's clunky. No UI design awards here. BUT - the images it produces... well that's where it gets very interesting.

When I was a Canon shooter I would occasionally come across a post from a photographer extolling the virtues of using Canon's own proprietary RAW processing software. But then you'd have responses from others saying things like 'slow' and 'clunky' and I'd quickly move on. I was using Aperture, was very happy with it, and saw no reason to change. But that was then....

Since I'm now in the market for a RAW processing programme, I though it might be time to look at Olympus's offering and compare it with the megalithic giant that is Adobe Lightroom. The results are very interesting.

Lightroom CC Tiff on the left, Olympus Viewer 3 Tiff on the right.

Obviously in any RAW software you can tweak and alter an image to your hearts desire. So all I did to compare "apples with apples" was to take the RAW .orf (Olympus Raw Format) file and 'process' it as a 16bit uncompressed Tiff file completely unaltered. Nothing was touched, nothing was changed, no slider was moved. I simply opened the RAW file in the respective programmes and saved them out immediately. I should also mention that I shoot my RAW images with everything in-camera set to neutral.

It may be hard to see from the internet resolution, so I'll tell you what I see on my computer monitor in the comparison above. First, the Tiff file from Olympus Viewer is much sharper that the one from Lightroom. Much sharper. Which is odd, and somewhat surprising, since I read somewhere recently that Lightroom adds about 25% sharpening by default to all its RAW conversions (since RAW images are 'softer' out of camera). So I was expecting that the Lightroom Tiffs would be sharper than Olympus's. But it just ain't the case.

Second, the colours of the Olympus rendered Tiff look more 'accurate' to me. And not just more accurate, but also more vibrant. Blues are bluer and whites are whiter, whereas the Lightroom Tiffs introduce a slight colour shift.

And third, and again surprisingly (to me at least), the Olympus images have a lot less noise apparent in the image. And I mean a lot. Noise in the blue of the water in the above magnified crop is practically non-existent in the Olympus Tiff (shot at ISO 200). Whereas the Lightroom Tiff had obvious noise.

Lightroom Tiff on left, Olympus Tiff on right.

Again, the above comparison shows the Olympus Viewer 3 Tiff to be sharper, punchier, and yet truer in colour rendition. And this was a trend that continued shot after shot.

Lightroom on left, Olympus Viewer 3 on right.

Sometimes the differences are subtle, but they are still definitely there. Olympus Viewer 3 just produces better conversions every time. And although initially this surprised me, when you stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense. RAW files are unique for each manufacturer. They encode them with their own 'special sauce' (so to speak) to differentiate them from others. So who best to 'unlock' that code than the manufacturer themselves. Adobe (and other third party software developers) have to reverse-engineer the RAW codes each and every time a new camera is released, which is why it sometimes takes a while for new cameras to be added to the Lightroom catalogue. They get their own conversion algorithms close - but not perfect. Olympus, of course, gets it perfect.

Lightroom on left, Olympus Viewer 3 on right.

Of all the examples, the one above perhaps illustrates best the benefits of using Olympus Viewer 3 over Lightroom. Again, these are straight, unaltered conversions of the same .orf RAW file. The colours are almost night and day different, and the results speak for themselves. I know which one I'd rather be using as a starting point for any further editing.

Of course you could tweak the Lightroom file to look like the Olympus file - you can almost do anything you like with a RAW file - that's the point of shooting RAW. But the Olympus software saves you that initial hassle by getting it right out of the box.

Final image, processed with Olympus Viewer 3 and edited in Photoshop CC

The final image is exactly what I wanted to portray with this shot. Yes, I could have got there by using Adobe Lightroom, but it would have taken a lot longer to fix up the colour and noise issues inherent in the Lightroom file, that simply didn't exist in the Olympus rendered file. It makes me wonder what software camera reviewers use when they give an opinion about the noise of certain cameras/sensors? Looking at the Lightroom Tiffs I would have said that the OM-D E-M5 Mk2 had a fairly noisy sensor - even at ISO 200. But look at the Olympus Viewer 3 Tiffs and it disappears.

So I may have become a convert to using Olympus Viewer 3 for my RAW conversions from now on? Yes, it is slower, and yes, it is clunkier. But at the same time it is also fairly intuitive and usable. And at the end of the day, the time you save not having to tweak the images further in Lightroom probably cancels out the slowness of the software.

I have also downloaded Corel's AfterShot Pro 3 RAW conversion software, which I will try against Olympus Viewer 3 next. But I have a feeling it's going to need to be mighty impressive to knock Viewer 3 off the top of the RAW Software perch. Very interesting indeed. 

Jpeg experiment Part One: Jpeg Correction

I’m starting a month (or so) shooting jpegs, as an experiment to see if a:) it can replace a Raw workflow and b:) if jpegs are ‘flexible’ enough to have as my only file.

I went out this week to shoot in the early evening, ostensibly to test my ‘new’ Olympus 17mm f2.8 pancake lens, but also to kick off this whole jpeg shooting thing. To be honest, I don’t think it will ‘stick’. I’m already having withdrawal symptoms. But I also think this is largely my issue and nothing to do inherently with the jpeg file format. If I can actually stick it out for the month, I might find my attitudes have changed by the end? We’ll see.

Colour cast from 'incorrect' white balance.

It’s early spring at the moment and we are experiencing some lovely evening light, with fabulous golden-hour sun racking across the town. This gives a gorgeous golden glow to the landscape, but also introduced my first hurdle shooting with jpeg only – White Balance. I shoot on ‘Auto’ WB practically 100% of the time. Why not, I shoot Raw – right? Well, not anymore. For some of the shots I took, auto WB worked perfectly. For others – not so much. So now I have programmed my ‘video record’ button on the E-M5 Mk2 to be a quick menu WB/ISO button.

Neptune Backpackers, Greymouth. Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mk2 with Zuiko 17mm f2.8 Pancake @ f4, 1/250th. ISO 200

What happens if the jpeg gets the White Balance wrong? Is it recoverable? Well in this instance, yes, it certainly was recoverable. And it was relatively easy to achieve (although still not as easy as it is when shooting Raw). I just opened the Jpeg in Photoshop, went to the Curves Adjustment panel, chose the white eyedropper, and took a sample of an area along the top of the roofline that I knew should be white. Hey-presto, the WB was corrected (kind of). I did fiddle about with it a little bit more, reducing the yellows even further, but was generally happy with the result. For future reference – choose the WB manually when shooting jpegs.

A large dynamic range made capturing detail difficult

As the evening sun disappeared, the shadows became deeper and darker. I shot using the live view histogram visible through the EVF, but could tell that the dynamic range of the scene was exceeding what the camera was capable of capturing. I could have resorted to using a graduated neutral density filter to 'even out' some of the dynamic range - but I don't generally carry them around with me. The OM-D E-M5 Mk2 also has a HDR mode that will help overcome some of the problems with excessive dynamic range in a scene, but I will have to have a play with that setting another time. In this instance, to retain detail in the highlights, I had to let some of the shadows darken to black. Could some of this be retrieved later on when shooting a Jpeg?

Coal River Park, Greymouth. OM-D E-M5 Mk2 with 17mm f2.8 Pancake lens @ f4 at 1/250th. ISO 200

Again, the answer is ‘yes’ - kind of. For this experiment I’m also not using Lightroom – probably because it puts me too much back into the Raw workflow mind set. All the image enhancement will get done in Photoshop. Opening a jpeg that had blocked up shadows, I used the Highlight/Shadow slider and managed to return a fair bit of shadow detail back into the scene. Is it as much as I could have returned with a Raw file? No, I don’t believe so. Whether it’s true, or simply my bias, I don’t yet know. But the jpegs just don’t feel like they can take a lot of manipulation before they start showing the signs. You have to be gentle with the tweaking, or it can start to look fake really fast.

Saturation at normal levels in the 'Vivid' mode

I’m shooting all the jpegs on the ‘Vivid’ setting to boost the colours, and have the Sharpness set to +1. Looking at the files on my computer, sharpness is about right. I’d be happy to leave it at that and not touch the sharpening. Saturation, on the other hand, may need to be bumped up a notch? The colours I remember seeing when I was taking the images were actually more vibrant that what I ended up with in the jpeg file. Or maybe I just like my images over saturated? For whatever reason, I increased the saturation by around 15 to 20% in all the photos I played with in Photoshop, and even then I wasn’t necessarily getting the punch I was after. 

Facade in Evening's Glow. OM-D E-M5 Mk2 with 17mm f2.8 Pancake lens @ f5.6 at 1/200th. ISO 200

I actually ended up duplicating the layer and changing its blending mode to ‘Multiply’ to intensify the colour in the sky. I then had to mask out the building to tone that area down. There was quite a bit of work involved to get it how I wanted it to look. I’m pretty sure it would have been faster and easier to achieve the same result with a Raw file in Lightroom.

The Sentinel. OM-D E-M5 Mk2 with 17mm f2.8 Pancake lens @ f5.6 at 1/320th. ISO 200

So was my first outing shooting Jpeg-only a success? Yes – and No. Overall I’m happy with the photos I took, and very happy with a couple of them. Was it easier shooting in Jpeg? No – definitely not. I made the analogy in my initial post on this experiment of comparing jpegs to slide film. And I believe that analogy still holds true. Nail your white balance, as much as possible nail your exposure, and you should be fine. As long as you’ve got your colour saturation and sharpness where you want them as well. This will slow you down and make you think – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it also means that if (when) you do get it wrong, it’s going to be harder to get a usable image out of it.

Coal River Park Silhouette. OM-D E-M5 Mk2 with 17mm f2.8 Pancake lens @ f5.6 at 1/500th. ISO 200 

It’s early days yet of course, but I’m already beginning to see that the promise of shorter processing times shooting jpegs might be more myth than reality?