Instant JPEG from RAW ... anyone tried it?

[Rupert49]

On page 194 of his book 'The Digital Photography Book, Volume 3' Scott Kelby refers the reader to a website (www.rawworkflow.com) where there is a free downloadable software utility (plug-in) that can be used to extract the jpeg preview that's already embedded in a RAW image. Apparently the software gives you a choice of jpeg size before you click 'extract' which it then does instantly, parking the files in their own folder. The potential benefit would seem clear .. shoot everything in RAW only and get more pictures on your card; if you want jpegs as well, summon up the utility.

However, before I get too excited, I thought I'd ask if anybody out there has come across this plug-in and tried it for themselves? For an empty 8GB CF card my 5D MkII suggests an image capacity of 283 RAW only files, or 225 RAW + jpeg fine. If this software works as I believe it's meant to, those extra 50-60 images on the card could be really useful when on a specific shoot, like a wedding or similar.

[Roger_Provins]

I've just download and tried it - works very well and fast! There's a choice of maximum sizes or the native size (which is the largest and mine turned out to be 1616 x 1080 - 1.17MB). I suppose the resultant images would be good for email or web use if one did not want to change the image in anyway. Certainly quick and easy.

[Rupert49]

Thanks for the benefit of your (recent ) experience Roger! So, is the largest jpeg size available to you considerably less than what your camera would produce for itself? My 5D MkII produces jpegs of between 5MB & 10MB approximately, depending on what's been photographed. As you say, could be handy for web use or emails but not much else; of course, any serious post processing would be applied to the RAW file anyway, so no great loss in the scheme of things

[Terrywoodenpic]

Thanks for the benefit of your (recent ) experience Roger! So, is the largest jpeg size available to you considerably less than what your camera would produce for itself? My 5D MkII produces jpegs of between 5MB & 10MB approximately, depending on what's been photographed. As you say, could be handy for web use or emails but not much else; of course, any serious post processing would be applied to the RAW file anyway, so no great loss in the scheme of things

The largest jpeg is only the inbuilt size used by the rawfile for index. so is not much use for other things.

[Roger_Provins]

... So, is the largest jpeg size available to you considerably less than what your camera would produce for itself? ...

Yes, by a long way The raw file is 24.6MB 6080x4068 from my camera and the embedded jpeg was 1.17MB 1660x1080 - just for indexing really - but could have other uses as I mentioned.

[withanee]

I now use this utilty instead of RAW+JPEG. On the Canon 5D Mk 2 the extracted JPEG can be full size, ie 5616 x 3744 pixels, but this is not the case with all cameras. The largest size available on the 40D for example is only 1936 x 1288 pixels, and the 5D it's 2496 x 1664. I don't understand why this is the case.

Still very useful and quick too.

David

[Muffin]

I have always found it a little confusing to be told I should be taking RAW plus JPEG with my 7D. It would seem to be very wasteful of CF card space and I only ever process RAW files anyway so why do I need a JPEG as well?

I suppose it could be to do with the sheer number of shots some folk have when they return from a shoot. I believe 600 is not uncommon whereas I rarely have more than 15 shots. Are JPEG's just used to make a survey of keepers and deleters?

Certainly the site you have posted looks interesting and could be useful even to people like myself. This summer I may be taking more shots per shoot and JPEG's could be useful?

[Muffin]

I did it! My computer skills being what they are I had the usual problems trying to download the site. It did help when I read the instructions!

I must say the site is very good and I am impressed. Even I can see the advantages. It converted 20 of my RAW files to JPEG's in about 1 second and then I could view them as a picture show. It makes it easy to select the keepers and then work on those in the RAW version. The problem I have is that downloading lots of RAW files seems to be very slow. Is there any way I can speed that up? I am using the Canon DPP but I download the RAW files from the CF card first and then view them in DPP.

[daft_biker]

Morning Fred, have you tried the Capture One Pro RAW converter? You can get a sort of slideshow of RAW files - or at least the old version I had for an old camera did. The scroll wheel on the mouse let you scroll through RAWs and shows them large enough if you want.

If DPP had such a feature it may save you needing to extract the JPEGs for a slideshow and then having to remember the filenames to go find them in DPP.

Last I checked it was £100 or so for Capture One but there's probably a free trial available if you want to try it. (am on mobile so can't check at the moment)

[El_Sid]

Erm... DPP does a slideshow of any file it can read (Canon RAW and JPEG). The slideshow also allows you to view files at 50%, grade them and view the file info - though there seems to be a bug in the version I've got where if you look at the info in full screen mode it somehow disables the grading option...

[daft_biker]

Erm... DPP does a slideshow of any file it can read (Canon RAW and JPEG). The slideshow also allows you to view files at 50%, grade them and view the file info - though there seems to be a bug in the version I've got where if you look at the info in full screen mode it somehow disables the grading option...

Select all then the 1st button on the button bar? I may die of old age before it does something

I don't want to just be able to view and grade - the slideshow scroll wheel thing is (was?) just how Capture One worked; insert card (or attach camera) and it would automatically start dowloading, start the application and let you go through the images as they downloaded. You had the full range of tools available to use all the time.

[Rupert49]

The problem I have is that downloading lots of RAW files seems to be very slow. Is there any way I can speed that up? I am using the Canon DPP but I download the RAW files from the CF card first and then view them in DPP.

The speed of downloading files from cards is probably more subjective than anything and personally I don't have any issue with the speed of things at home. I always shoot RAW + jpeg, and once home again I slot the CF card into the appropriate port in my PC and copy'n'paste all the data to a folder on my hard drive. After a quick back-up I then flick through the jpegs to decide on the keepers & deleters, then finally upload the appropriate RAW files from my hard drive into PSE7. Once processed they get saved back to their original folder where I sub-section them as 'edited version' before backing up again (very important that last bit!). Sounds long winded in print, but it works for me and the files always seem to download pretty rapidly from CF card to computer.

Glad your review of the plug-in was also favourable .. I'll give it a whirl myself.

[Muffin]

Hell Fire! My thanks to you all for your most erudite replies. I will try to understand them and see what I can do. Now that I have a 7D and a 70-200mm IS plus 1.4TC the world is my oyster. I also bought the Canon 400mm f5.6 and that is a superb lens but sadly with no IS.

[PeteRob]

Erm... DPP does a slideshow of any file it can read (Canon RAW and JPEG). The slideshow also allows you to view files at 50%, grade them and view the file info - though there seems to be a bug in the version I've got where if you look at the info in full screen mode it somehow disables the grading option...

The DPP 3.2 tutorial on the US canon site http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/control...articleID=1228 has some very good hints and tips about workflow. I was quite suprised. I had to download the chapters because the voice broke up a lot watching it on line

[El_Sid]

Select all then the 1st button on the button bar? I may die of old age before it does something

Nope... Just click Alt+Q to access quick view. You don't neccesarily have select all the images as it will play all the images in open folder - though if you select only one image it only plays that image.

I don't want to just be able to view and grade - the slideshow scroll wheel thing is (was?) just how Capture One worked; insert card (or attach camera) and it would automatically start dowloading, start the application and let you go through the images as they downloaded. You had the full range of tools available to use all the time.

Fair enough... DPP isn't quite that sophisticated I'll admit...

[daft_biker]

Fair enough... DPP isn't quite that sophisticated I'll admit...

Behind the scences I think it is, it's just the interface that I think spoils DPP. The version of C1 that I used to use with the 300D didn't have any lens correction or anything fancy - it was just nice to use and could give great results.

In DPP what were they thinking when they thought it would be a good idea to put a great big slide carrier border round the thumbnails. The border is a waste of space IMO

The other neat thing C1 did was the batch processing....as you scroll through RAWs you can pick the ones you want and add them to a list which can get processed in the background as you go or left until the end. I found it easy to use and logically laid out.

Must go try out a new version to see if it's still as good

[Wheelu]

Isn't this a solution looking for a problem? I shoot mostly RAW and preview in DPP, why on earth do I need JPGs? Clearly I am missing something here

[Rupert49]

Isn't this a solution looking for a problem? I shoot mostly RAW and preview in DPP, why on earth do I need JPGs? Clearly I am missing something here

Personally I choose not to use DPP, preferring to preview images on my hard drive before importing them into PSE7 for processing and onward storage & back-up. I always shoot RAW+jpeg because when I come to preview images on my hard drive, only the jpegs are visible. For some reason RAW files don't open without first being converted to jpeg or TIFF through PS.

If anyone can tell me how I can preview RAW mages on my PC without first having to put them through PS, I would be most grateful. It would obviate the need to shoot jpegs at all, since I only use those for preview purposes, and in turn it would release more card space on a long shoot

[Meredith]

If anyone can tell me how I can preview RAW mages on my PC without first having to put them through PS, I would be most grateful. It would obviate the need to shoot jpegs at all, since I only use those for preview purposes, and in turn it would release more card space on a long shoot

Adobe Bridge? Canon Zoombrowser? You can view images in DPP as well and not process them in it as it has a file browser function as well as the RAW conversion bit. There are other file browsers that should read Canon RAW files as well.

[Benchista]

You just need the latest Canon RAW codec and you can use Windows itself to preview files if you wish.
I never shoot RAW + JPEG; generally I have no use whatever for JPEG unless it's a record shot for work, when I have no need for RAW. I use any of the RAW convertors I have to preview - they all have decent facilities these days, including DPP end Elements 7.