Shooting Simultaneous RAW & JPEGs

If your camera has the capability of capturing both Raw files and JPEG files at the same time, you can use the JPEG versions as a guideline to post-processing through Camera Raw.

In theory, Raw files contain no processing by the camera, allowing you to perform the adjustments that the camera would make during post-processing. However, all Raw files require some processing, and this can result in a lot of work. Shoot both Raw and JPEG at the same time, and you’ll see what I mean. If you’ve made good decisions on how you’ve set the camera’s color preferences, you’ll likely prefer the JPEG over the raw file.

However, if you find that JPEG file needs major help… perhaps it’s over or under exposed, too contrasty, balanced incorrectly, etc. you can use the Raw version to fix the problem. Sure, you can make minor tweaks to the JPEG file in Camera Raw, and that’s the approach I would recommend. But if you have to make large adjustments to compensate for an over or underexposed image, Raw is the better place to make them. However, you may like the overall color balance, exposure and contrast of the JPEG version of a similar image, and you can use that as a guideline for adjusting the Raw file.

It’s easy to get lost in the Camera Raw interface; there are just so many things you can do, and sometimes you just need a “target” to point you in the right direction. Adjusting a Raw version to match its JPEG counterpart often results in an image which is not an exact match, but rather a similar image with improved detail, presence and absence of noise.

Once you arrive at a set of acceptable settings, try copying them and pasting them into the other Raw files. This may give you a good starting point more quickly. There are different ways of doing this depending on the application, but both Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw/Bridge and Apple Aperture 3 support this feature.

This also works in reverse. Many cameras apply a correction for a lens’ chromatic aberration to the JPEG file, but not the Raw file. In comparing the two, you might find qualities in the Raw file that you prefer in the JPEG file, and you can use it as a guide to reduce contrast, saturation, etc. to bring the JPEG more in line with reality.

Lastly, you can even layer the two versions in Photoshop and use blend modes and masking to get the best out of both versions. For example, if you like the color of the Raw image, but the contrast of the JPEG image, you can place the JPEG image on a layer above the Raw image, and change its blend mode to Luminosity. This will blend the luminosity (lightness and contrast) of the top layer with the color (hue and saturation) of the underlying layer.