Close to giving up

I've been taking photos for almost 40 years but I'm close to giving up. I've not taken any photos I really like for quite a while. My computer is old, my software even older but I cannot justify the expense of or afford to replace them both. I'm rubbish at editing raw photos but am rarely happy with camera JPEGs. My Pictures folder is a bit of a mess with raw+JPEG pairs mixed in with various edits trying different software and ideas. I waste far to much time and energy taking test shots and trying to work out a workflow that is simple and gives good enough results.

I miss the days when I shot JPEG only with a digicam and used Picasa to manage and edit my snaps. Picasa's none destructive workflow was great.

Has anyone switched from a raw workflow to a JPEG one? Are you happy with your results? What software do you use?

I used the free FastStone for ages before purchasing ON1. I only purchased pp for advanced noise reduction and better raising of shadows. Of course there are a lot of other benefits like masking but I rarely use those.
I don't know of any destructive raw pp. At least all the major players leave the raw alone and save the editing instructions in another file.

FastStone is a jpg only editor - yes it can edit the jpg embedded in a raw file but doesn't use the actual raw file data. I don't know about other cameras but the embedded jpg is of lesser quality with my Panasonic cameras so I don't use it.

I find FastStone so quick and easy to use that I still use it for basics like contrast, saturation, basic highlight / shadows, basic colour adjustments, sharpening and cropping. I selectively save my adjustments as jpgs with a simplified naming scheme so I know what I did. It doesn't bother me that I have 3 or 4 extra jpgs with successive edits.
Generally I find the quality of the OOC jpgs good enough to work with (if the camera settings were within reason) and it's only when I need noise reduction or to change exposure or local adjustments that I dive into the raw editor.

Another big advantage of FastStone is that it doesn't need the latest wizz-bang chipsets. It should run fine on older hardware.

Many use Darktable but I could never get it to run on my system (always crashed on opening a file to edit)...

Bryan, with all due respect, this is a common myth. I can set FastStone Viewer (FVS) to convert raw files, including .RW2. It uses a version of DCraw so to do.

Case in point: my Sigma SD9 and SD10 have no full-size embedded JPEG and only output raw files of type .X3F. My FSV is set to convert raw files as opposed to extracting the embedded JPEG.

Would you like to know how open raw files with conversion in FSV?

Just do it.
Switch off RAW for a month or so and see how you go.
The first thing you need to answer, but; is "what's wrong with my JPEGs ?"
Why not post a few here with full EXIF and someone will help for sure ?
I second FastStone as your primary tool, if you can't get it 99% right there, then you have other problems.
Don't forget that you can use other tools within FastStone (edit with external program) like the old NIK suite which can still be found if you look. That will get you Silver Effex and the like.
All that said, RAW is still definitely the way to go. If it's too cumbersome, figure out why. Culling for example, can be done with the excellent FastRawViewer. It's fast as.

p.s. Picasa 39 is still around if you dig deep enough.

i use faststone for quick editing and photoshop for my extended editing, if you want first class jpegs buy a sony a7iv the jpegs are first class out of camera ,in fact i put up a chalenge 2 years ago on the sony forum and posted a raw file link of a kookaburra and chalenged anyone that they couldnt beat my out of camera jpeg, they all lost the chalenge must have been 12 chalenges., i finally posted the jpeg and only 1 person could match it and that was a week later and using the jpeg as a reference, raw is so over rated, even my past olympus em1mk2 jpegs were very good. my event work i just tweek the jpgs now because the skin tones are are very good compared 3rd party software.

togwood,

I use Irfanview for minimal jpg edits. It's free and pretty simple to use.

Steve Thomas

I sympathize, being old and disabled. As to the need for edits, I've always tried to get it right in-camera, not saying that you should.

Nothing wrong with JPEGs. FastStone Viewer can export JPEGs with virtually no compression and no chroma sub-sampling.

I mainly use the GIMP for serious editing, after converting raw to JPEG or PNG in RawTherapee or RawDigger.

As to your Pictures folder, which sounds like my entire hard drive, I would get free XnView MP and add keywords to all your images leaving the images in-place. Makes them much easier to find later, eh? XnView MP has the best Search tool on the planet, bringing up "contact sheets" for your search terms, page-by-page.

Most definitely - please

In FSV press keyboard F12 then click on the RAW tab ... this comes up:

Then arrow-key down to select which raw size you prefer ...

HTH

Thanks. I was fully aware of those options but for some reason thought it was just the viewer - but indeed the image properties reflect full size or half size.

Now I have to wait for a G9M2 codec or update to FS - G9 is fine...

Try shooting something different than your normal work. If you do portraits try landscapes. Color try B&W. If you use telephotos experiment with wide-angle lenses. You need a break to get the creative juices flowing.

Equipment wise one doesn't have to use the newest stuff. I have cameras that are 100 years old. My processing computer is a Windows 7 with Photoshop Elements 11. It is slow with huge medium format 645 files. But, faster than film🙂 which I used for 40+ years.

I use Raw with the cameras that offer it. The Sigma uses their Foveon converter. Pentax uses their program based on Silkypix. It has an "as shot in camera" mode that adjusts to what the jpeg would have been. Then I can tweak special images further.

Don't give up, switch gears.
Thanks,
barondla

Thank you all for the good advice and encouragement. I've played around with Rawtherapee and Darktable previously. Darktable is beyond me and is quite slow on my 7th gen i3 based PC with it's built in GPU. Rawtherapee runs better but still not great with the 20 megapixel files from my Sony RX100 and Olympus EM10iv. The Olympus JPEGs are nice but I'm not too keen on the skin tones from my RX100 or my Panasonic FZ300. Now that I have the Olympus I have mostly stopped using the Panasonic and Sony for people shots. I will have to try to get back into the habit of getting it mostly right in camera and being happy with the results.
I will get out and get some shots to participate in some of the image sharing threads. It's time to stop trying to get everything perfect and just have some fun.

Welcome! That sounds like a great idea. I agree with barondla, that it's important to try something different from time to time and challenge ourselves.

Regarding the RAW/JPEG thing... I personally only ever shoot JPEG. I get that some things aren't possible without using RAW files, but with the kind of shots I take it's so incredibly rare that these are relevant that I don't even consider switching. I don't have the necessary space on my computer to constantly handle RAW files and I also don't want to process each and every image. I'm using focus-stacking from time to time for macro where RAW isn't an option anways and also do a lot of stereo photography which means I would have double the amount of RAW files at least... that's just crazy. I do edit some of my images before uploading them. I work with Photoshop (I don't like Lightroom one bit) and don't feel like working with JPEGs does impact my options negatively.

If you feel like working with RAW files takes up too much time, don't sweat missing out on the (in my opinion) relatively small benefits and just shoot JPEG at least until you got your love and fascination for photography back, which - as others have stated - usually doesn't come from shooting the best file-format possible, but rather something different or experimental... something to re-kindle your childlike curiosity or triggers some creative spark! All the best wishes for that!

The weekly threads here are certainly a good start! For me personally Flickr is also a fun place for weekly challenges to have something to think about creatively. If you're on there I can recommend you some of them.

Thank you simplejoy. I will run out of space in the not too distant future if I continue to shoot raw + JPEG. Photography related articles and videos talk a lot about the importance of shooting raw, it is reassuring that you and a few others here shoot JPEG only and get great results.

In an effort to simplify my workflow I have switched off raw in my cameras and uninstalled all of the unnecessary software from my computer. I have installed XnView MP for organisation and quick edits plus GIMP for when I feel like experimenting. I have spent a bit of time the last couple of days experimenting with the Categories in XnView MP and I think it's just what I have been looking for to help bring some order back to the chaos. It runs well on my PC too.

How you doing with that, Tog?

I also use XnView MP and the GIMP and I stand ready to give any needed help with either of those ...

If you get into adding keywords to your images with XnView, it's useful to have a list of your standard IPTC keywords ... using your own standard keywords prevents unnecessary dupes, e.g. car, motor, Car, Motorcar, MotorCar, etc.

here's mine, FWIW:
XnKeywords(2).txt

The tabs show an hierarchy and those IPTC tags can also/or be written to the image file in XMP format if you're into the modern way.

The search engine can use that list with the keywords > "contains" function so as to nail all images anywhere with e.g. 'yard', 'flower', 'rose', 'summer' ... na-ni-na ...

The truth is that with the leaps forward in sensor and processing performance over the past fifteen years, plus jpeg editing controls that now rival the powers of RAW editing of yore, many current and contemporary digital cameras can produce print-quality, display-quality, publishing-quality jpeg photos that couldn't have been dreamt of ten or fifteen years ago. There is an entire cult of people in the Fuji APSC crowd who revel in shooting only jpegs using that brand's so-called "filmsims," customized "recipes," and jpeg editing functions. And the results often look beautiful.

Fuji is hardly unique to this, they're just better at marketing these options and amenities--most of the other brands have parallel jpeg profiles and editing/processing tools. Sure, the bigger the sensor format, the better the jpeg possibilities, and ample resolution is also a key ingredient---but the 20mp m43 camera you mention has abundant capacity to deliver super-nice jpeg results given optimal exposing, good shooting technique, and proficiency with available jpeg editing functions. You mention your EM10Vl---taste in this stuff is personal and subjective, but IMHO Olympus is one of the brands whose color science puts out lovely SOOC jpegs needing minimal tweaking-to-taste with available jpeg editing controls if you have that "great negative" to start with.

There is a puritanical, politically correct "Only RAW Will Do" gatekeeping mentality among many digital users who frequent gear and photo forums. If RAW isn't working for you, feel free to unabashedly throw off jpeg shame and jpeg inhibition and focus instead on the shooting part of the equation to ensure you have a "great negative" to start with in your digital darkroom. Noise avoidance is better implemented at the shooting stage than at the post stage anyhow. You always have the option of getting RAW back into your toolbox if you want. But today's sensor and processing performance is such that you may not want to given strong subject choice, composition, understanding of light, shooting and exposure technique, and adeptness with available jpeg editing controls.

So much for people who shoot only raw.

With two of my five cameras, I have no choice - they only output raw, irrespective of my mentality: puritanical, politically correct, gatekeeping or not ...