E-PL1 - RAW or JPG?

It's just like clams......do it raw...
There is more latitude and control with raw. The Oly's make great jpgs, true nuff but the raw files are much more manageable.

To test, shoot in Raw + Jpg...then process the raw and compare to the jpg....
now adjust the exposure slider in the jpeg and then in the raw....you'll be amazed at the difference....

 

I always do both. A monotone JPG SH quality, and the RAW. I mostly do b&w, and the JPG is good enough to handle the tweakings I might need on top of the oly OOC picture.

Plus, in any situation, I prefer framing and composing my images in b&w, I find it less distracting than in colours.

But for those occasions I really wished I had kept the colours, RAW is my safety net ; and as good as the in-camera jpg engine is (and it's the best on the market), I prefer to have latitude to apply my own 'style'.

 

Thanks mauve for the personal experience....

 

My favorite post processing routine is using the free program "Irfanview" as it reads the ORF files nicely. So I take the ORF file in, resize/resample it by 70%, one hit of sharpening and it prints a 13x19 perfectly. Indeed the color from an ORF is astounding already just opening it in Irfanview. I haven't needed any adjustment it's THAT good right off the get go. I also have Noiseware and Topaz DeNoise at my disposal if needed, but thus far it hasn't been very needed. The Pl1 has been doing a fine job. I feel so confident of it's abilities that I've decided to trust it with my next vacation coming up in May to the Northwest. I could choose a D700 or D5000 Nikon DSLR but I love the idea of one small bag carrying this body with some great lenses to work with that weigh next to nothing. So I'm looking forward to it now and count down the days.

 

Congrats DC...your there!

 

Try Nik Dfine. It's a free trial and it's hard to beat.

Photographic Noise Reduction

 

I have to admit that I generally find the jpeg just fine unless it's a very high contrast scene as in deep shadows contrasting with super bright highlights.

 

This is a nice thread for a user like myself who is just getting into more advanced options. I've seen a lot of discussion about Aperture, but I'm not a Mac user

That said, can anybody recommend a processing program for PC? I've seen Lightroom (and have Photoshop), but am not quite ready to put the money down on it (rather save it for lenses!) Any nice freeware available?

Sorry if this was posted elsewhere...

 

Owning both an Oly and a Pany body I can say that the Oly jpgs are superior. That said after trying jpgs from both I am now going back to RAW and using the OlyColy profiles for LR and ACR for both my bodies.

These are available by donation via Paypal from Colin. LINK:

 

Give Helicon Filter a try. Version 5 beta is available but the good news is Version 4 is available free at the moment. Normally the download trial reverts to a limited free version but this is the full version. Processing is a bit slow but it handles RAW and will recognise some PS plugins as a bonus.

 

Memory is cheap. I simply shoot jpg+raw. The jpg's are great and useful for most purposes. I consider the raw files my archive of "negatives". You never know when you might want to go back and re-process an image and the raw file gives you the most latitude. As an example of the difference between the files, a jpg saves 256 levels of brightness, and the raw file saves 4096 levels of brightness.

On a recent trip, the top keeper was only possible with a bit of heavy-handed post-processing of the raw file. I knew when I took it, that it would make a pretty good b&w shot, but what I didn't know is that it would become one of my all time favorite photos! Memory is cheap, memories are priceless.

I have been using raw most of the time for a long time. Now my camera is "hard-wired" to jpg+raw.