[Leica] Now RAW vs JPEG

[jonathan at openhealth.org (Jonathan Borden)]

Tina Manley wrote:

> At 05:30 PM 5/22/2005, you wrote:
>
>
>> The workflow is this:
>>
>> RAW -> lossless conversion -> TIFF
>>
>> -- the key here is the *lossless conversion* step.
>>
>> Jonathan
>>
>
> But in order to store the image as a tiff, you are converting it.   
> You lose the ability to change anything in the conversion process.

Nope.

> Raw contains all of the information available.

So can TIFF.

> Converting to tiff you are making choices about white balance,  
> exposure, contrast, sharpening, and many, many more.

Those can be done via an embedded ICC profile.

There is absolutely nothing to prevent you from storing the RAW bits  
in a TIFF.

> Those can't be changed once you convert to tiff.

Sure they can, see above.

> With raw you have the ability to change those every time you convert.

With TIFF you retain the ability to do all that in Photoshop.

> Raw images also take up much less space than tiffs.

You can always ZIP compress TIFFs.

> Why wouldn't you save raws?

How about what happens in 5-10 years? Are you sure that these RAW  
formats will be retained?

TIFF software is much much much more likely to be around. It is a  
standard format.

Jonathan