topic Re: convert raw to jpeg in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

convert raw to jpeg

kaylacanon89 — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 03:11:58 GMT

Hello everyone, i did a photo shoot but somehow i shot in RAW. I try to view them in my laptop but it does not open because it doesnt support the file. I opened the RAW photos in many other online converters so that i can convert them to jpeg, but it changes all the colors and the pictures look horrible. Please help on how i can convert these to jpeg and still have the sane image i took.

Re: convert raw to jpeg

Jenine — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 03:27:15 GMT

Hi Kaylacanon89!

Welcome to the Canon Forums and thanks for your post!

To have a better understanding of your issue, please let everyone know what camera and operating system (Windows Vista/7/8 or Mac OS 10.X) you are using. That way, the community will be able to assist you with suggestions appropriate for your product.

Any other details you'd like to give will only help the Community better understand your issue!

If this is a time-sensitive matter, our US-based technical support team is standing by, ready to help by phone or email at http://bit.ly/ContactCanon.

Thanks!

Re: convert raw to jpeg

kaylacanon89 — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 04:34:14 GMT

Im using a Canon Rebel T5i and laptop Windows 7

Re: convert raw to jpeg

jrhoffman75 — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 11:41:50 GMT

Use Canon Digital Photo Professional raw processor. Its free, and it knows Canon RAW files.

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support/consumer/eos_slr_camera_systems/eos_digital_slr_cameras/eos_rebel_t5i_18_55mm_is_stm_lens_kit#DriversAndSoftware

Re: convert raw to jpeg

ebiggs1 — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 16:29:04 GMT

Why are you shooting in RAW? Do you know?

If your goal is simply a jpg, you should start in jpg and be done with it. It doesn't really matter whether the camera compresses the file or you do so in edit. If that is ALL you want, simply a jpg. Millions are completely happy with the jpg their Rebel provides.

Onthe other hand, if you want the best your camera and lens can provide, you must shoot in RAW. And, you must use post editing software. RAW offers so much more ability and info to adjust and correct than any jpg. But you must be willing to do post editing. DPP is on the bottom. It has some limited basic features. It is free with the camera.

The best choice and my favorite, is Lightroom. It makes RAW conversion seemless. It has lot's of features that will do 90% of anything you will ever want. It is not free but it isn't expensive. LR never alters you original RAW file which can be reclaimed at any point. It also catalogs your photos, so later you can actually find what you are looking for. Just plug you Rebel in (USB) and let LR do the rest. It will d/l the photos. Put them into a folder and present a screen for you to look at and/or edit. It will save your edits and let you make catalogs that are meaningful to you for later refference.

There is Photoshop and it's little brother Photoshop Elements. Either will do virtually anything that can be done to a RAW file. PSE is cheap. PS is not. Both have learning curves but PSE makes it pretty simple.

Re: convert raw to jpeg

TCampbell — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 18:15:13 GMT

The DPP software (Canon Digital Photo Professional) has the ability to "batch" convert your photos from RAW to JPEG. In "batch" mode, you can point it at a directory full of RAW files and it will convert them all.

JPEG is a great "final output" format and works great for images that wont need any adjustment. The downside of JPEG is that it's compression system results in a loss of original data that may hinder your ability to adjust the images. It plays upon weaknesses of the human eye by taking pixels that are so similar that your eye "probably wouldn't notice the difference" and just makes them the same. This aids compression... but if you needed to adjust that image (particularly exposure levels) you'll find that the fine detail is lost and the adjusted image looks bad.

RAW preserves all of the original data... but this means no adjustment can be made in-camera that would result in any loss of original data. So the files are much larger (they don't compresses nearly as well) and there are certain types of adjustments you tend to apply to nearly every image and these still need to be processed. These are things like white balance, color adjustment, sharpening, or noise-reduction.

This is where RAW workflow tools like Lightroom really shine. They store a "profile" for your camera so they know how much adjustment should be applied. I use Aperture (but don't buy that because Apple has announced they are not doing any further development on it) and all of this is applied automatically JUST because I imported the images into my Aperture library. In other words, I can unload the camera data into my computer and get results which are nearly the same as I would have had for JPEG ... except the images are infinitely more adjustable. Also, the tools don't actually apply the changes to the original image. They keep the original image and the adjustments separate and just auto-apply the adjustments to the on-screen image you see. This means you can undo any adjustment at any time (not just the last thing you did... any adjustment you did.) Also, Lightroom is designed to allow you to adjust lots of photos quickly. If you shot several dozen photos all the same light conditions, you can adjust the white balance of just one... then 'sync' your adjustment (or many adjustments at the same time if you want) to all the other photos that would need to the same correction. You can process entire shoots very rapidly because you don't have to deal with each image one-at-a-time.

You can't send a RAW file to a print service. When you're happy with your images and you'd like to produce a print, the software exports a "version" of the image which is a JPEG. That's fine... because now that the adjustments have all been done, JPEG is an excellent "final output" format.

Adobe Lightroom is easily the most popular image adjustment program on the market. But it's not free... it's also not for sale. You basically "rent" the software by the month... but you have to sign up for a minimum 1 year subscription. The Adobe Creative Cloud photography package is $10/month and includes unlimited use of both Lightroom and Photoshop.

Re: convert raw to jpeg

RobertTheFat — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 18:42:04 GMT

@ebiggs1 wrote:
Why are you shooting in RAW? Do you know?
If your goal is simply a jpg, you should start in jpg and be done with it. It doesn't really matter whether the camera compresses the file or you do so in edit. If that is ALL you want, simply a jpg. Millions are completely happy with the jpg their Rebel provides.

On the other hand, if you want the best your camera and lens can provide, you must shoot in RAW. And, you must use post editing software. RAW offers so much more ability and info to adjust and correct than any jpg. But you must be willing to do post editing. DPP is on the bottom. It has some limited basic features. It is free with the camera.

The best choice and my favorite, is Lightroom. It makes RAW conversion seemless. It has lot's of features that will do 90% of anything you will ever want. It is not free but it isn't expensive. LR never alters you original RAW file which can be reclaimed at any point. It also catalogs your photos, so later you can actually find what you are looking for. Just plug you Rebel in (USB) and let LR do the rest. It will d/l the photos. Put them into a folder and present a screen for you to look at and/or edit. It will save your edits and let you make catalogs that are meaningful to you for later refference.

There is Photoshop and it's little brother Photoshop Elements. Either will do virtually anything that can be done to a RAW file. PSE is cheap. PS is not. Both have learning curves but PSE makes it pretty simple.

Everything Ernie told you is true (except, IMO, his claim that DPP is "on the bottom"), but in this case you should take John's advice. If you find that you don't like DPP or you need the cataloguing capability, then let Ernie talk you into getting Lightroom.

Re: convert raw to jpeg

ebiggs1 — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 21:27:57 GMT

As of today Lightromm 5 is still retail. Amazon or B&H <--click either

Bob from Boston,

I will rephase my classification and just say the least features are in DPP. Actually I do like it's batch feature and you can not beat free.

Re: convert raw to jpeg

VideoGeek — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 05:13:01 GMT

Forgive me if this has already been mentined but there is an option in "Image-Recording Quality" to shoot in both RAW and High Quality JPEG. I'm just trying to throw out another option that will allow you to have both RAW and JPEG.

Image Quality

Select RAW + L (there is a symbol in front of the L)

The advantage is that you have the image in both formats. The JPEG for easy editing and RAW for retaining the image data. Of course shooting with both will take up more space on the memory card. However, as has already been mentioned, you will need software to work with the RAW files. There are many great suggestions for RAW editing software that have already been mentioned.

Re: convert raw to jpeg

RobertTheFat — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 13:49:10 GMT

@VideoGeek wrote:
Forgive me if this has already been mentined but there is an option in "Image-Recording Quality" to shoot in both RAW and High Quality JPEG. I'm just trying to throw out another option that will allow you to have both RAW and JPEG.

Menu
Image Quality
Select RAW + L (there is a symbol in front of the L)

The advantage is that you have the image in both formats. The JPEG for easy editing and RAW for retaining the image data. Of course shooting with both will take up more space on the memory card. However, as has already been mentioned, you will need software to work with the RAW files. There are many great suggestions for RAW editing software that have already been mentioned.

I don't accept the premise at all. I think editing in RAW is much easier than editing in JPEG, because you have much more direct control over the parameters that affect image quality. I can see shooting the two formats simultaneously if, say, you're a wedding photographer and want to have a slideshow of the ceremony available at the reception. (I've seen it done!) In such a case you obviously wouldn't have much time for editing. Otherwise, I tink it's pretty silly.

Re: convert raw to jpeg

ebiggs1 — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 14:26:32 GMT

"... you're a wedding photographer and want to have a slideshow of the ceremony available at the reception."

A simple task for Lightroom. RAW or not. But Bob from Boston has the important fact, there is no reason anymore to shoot in ipg. Editing software anymore makes the job seemless.

Shooting jpg with a new DSLR is like buying a new Corvette and pulling out four of it's spark plugs. You are simply trashing a ton of data your DSLR is capturing. Canon even makes this software free with each camera.

Re: convert raw to jpeg

TCampbell — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 16:55:59 GMT

@ebiggs1 wrote:
"... you're a wedding photographer and want to have a slideshow of the ceremony available at the reception."

A simple task for Lightroom. RAW or not. But Bob from Boston has the important fact, there is no reason anymore to shoot in ipg. Editing software anymore makes the job seemless.

Shooting jpg with a new DSLR is like buying a new Corvette and pulling out four of it's spark plugs. You are simply trashing a ton of data your DSLR is capturing. Canon even makes this software free with each camera.

I wouldn't say there is no reason... but the list is fairly short.

I've done some traveling without my laptop ... and only have my iPad with me. The iPad can import JPEGs off the memory card, but doesn't know how to read RAW files. It seems to be smart enough to know that they are RAW files and most RAW files actually have an embedded JPEG thumbnail which, surprisingly, it ALSO knows how to preview. It just can't open the full image. Of course this is just a matter of software (there's no hardware limiting reason why the device wouldn't be able to read RAW if I found software that knew how to handle it... but even Adobe's software on the iPad doesn't know how to deal with them the last time I checked.) So that's ONE situation where I'll tell the camera to save in RAW+JPEG and then transfer the JPEGs to my iPad (and I still had my RAWs when I got home from the trip.)

The one other area I can think of where JPEG has an advantage is in action photography. If you're shooting sports and you see some action you need to catch, your camera is in "continuous" shooting mode and you hold down the shutter... you hear the camera going "click" "click" "click" "click"...... "click".................."click"................."click". That dramatic drop in shooting speed happens because the internal memory buffer filled and the camera can't take another shot until it's done saving a previous shot to the memory card to make more room in the buffer for the next shot.

When you shoot RAW, each frame takes a lot of space so the memory buffer may not hold very many before you loose your continous shooting speed. But when you shoot JPEG, each frame is small and you can shoot many more frames before this happens.

On my 5D III (which is a bit of an exception, most cameras can't do this), the buffer is so large and the transfer speed is fast enough... that my "continuous" shooting limit in JPEG is actually unlimited. The camera can transfer the JPEGs as fast as I can take them to the point that it's not possible to fill the buffer. That means I can hold the shutter button down and keep capturing photos until the battery eventually runs out of power. Most cameras will eventually run into a buffer limit ... even on JPEG ... but you'll get MANY more JPEG frames capture as compared to RAW frames in this particular shooting situation.

For the overhwelming majority of shooting situations, RAW is going to capture more detail, offer more dynamic range, and offer vastly superior adjustment latitude.

RAW workflow tools like Lightroom or Aperture will auto-apply the sorts of adjustments that a JPEG would have done in-camera... so you don't even have to know how to do basic stuff. BUT... since the RAW workflow tools can be thought of as over-laying the adjustments without actually editing the data in the real image, if you don't happen to like the decision the RAW workflow tool made, you can change it. When you shoot JPEG... those decisions were made for you and if you don't like what the camera did... it's too late -- the original data is gone.

Re: convert raw to jpeg

ebiggs1 — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 19:57:41 GMT

"... you hear the camera going "click" "click" "click" "click"...... "click".................."click"................."click". "

Yes and another reason for the 1D Mk IV. And take a laptop along.

Re: convert raw to jpeg

kaylacanon89 — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 17:15:34 GMT

Thank you for your reply. I accidentally shot in RAW, i always shoot in JPEG. I'm a beginner and I do little photo sessions here and there but only outside with natural daylight. I read that when shooting in RAW you do have more capability in editing photos. But i don't really know how to use that software Lightroom (it looks to complicated to use). Maybe one day i learn more about it and practice using it. 🙂

Re: convert raw to jpeg

ebiggs1 — Tue, 03 Mar 2015 21:46:35 GMT

On the contrary, you have a point about Canon"s supplied DPP software but certainly not Lightroom. It can be nearly automatic if you want it to be. Yes, there is some set-up that is required but I have no doubt you can handle it.