Many people always think that, if you want a good photo, you just need to edit it carefully. However, in order to achieve the best image with the highest quality, the raw image itself also needs to meet the highest technical requirements for shooting.
Over the years of working in this field, we encounter a lot of questions from our customers: “Which file format is the best to edit and produce the best photos, especially real estate photos? With our experience in photo editing and working with many file formats, our article below will give you the clearest view of today’s popular file formats, so that you can compare and make the most appropriate choices, based on your own needs.
The most commonly-used formats are:
- JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
- TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)
- RAW (NEF, CR2, CR3, CRW)
- DNG (Digital Negative Format)
- PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
1. JPEG
JPEG is probably the best known of all image file formats, and it’s what many cameras use as the default output. JPEG is also chosen by many real estate photographers due to its advantages.
JPEG is a file that has been compressed by the camera. It does not contain the complete information captured by the camera sensor during exposure. Accordingly, JPEG is an image format that uses data compression to store and display digital images. Thanks to its high compression efficiency, it is the most commonly used image format today.
Some cameras will have options for different JPEG quality levels (e.g., low, medium, and high). The better the photo quality, the less compression the camera will perform on the original photograph.
Advantages:
– With the feature of compressing data, JPEG is the optimal choice if you want to save memory for your card. Especially, when shooting a house, such as bracketed photos, it won’t spend so much of your storage. At this point, JPEG will be one of the best choices.
– Quicker file transfer times, due to the smaller file size.
Disadvantages:
– Because the file is compressed, the resolution is low, so the image quality can’t get the best result. Photos may be noisy, cracked, lost details … It can be a big issue, since a real estate photos, notably the interior, have so many details.
– Less opportunity for image manipulation in photo-editing software. When shooting real estate photos, photographers may face some issues such as lack of light, photos might be shaky and so on… Sometimes, editors can’t fix those issues, because the format file – JPEG.
2.TIFF
As a standard image file format in the printing and publishing industry, TIFF files are much larger in size than JPEG and RAW files.
TIFF files are usually uncompressed, so they offer the opportunity for extensive post-processing. And because TIFFs are uncompressed, they are much bigger files, and will take up a lot of space – both on your memory card and on your computer.
Some cameras offer TIFF as their highest-quality image format.
Advantages:
– Image quality does not change even with editing.
– Most TIFF file formats are uncompressed, so you can resize a TIFF image, increasing the number of dots per inch (DPI) without losing image quality. In addition, you can transfer them between computers and applications without reducing any compatibility issues.
– Option to print at the highest quality and at much larger sizes.
– Due to the high image quality and resolution, TIFF files are often chosen for printing in large format images, without losing sharpness and color of the image.
Disadvantages:
– Takes up a lot of storage space.
– Transfer, upload and download time is quite long.
3. RAW
RAW image is an image format that is considered a “digital negative”, containing all the information recorded by the camera’s digital sensor, which has not been post-processed and compressed into other formats such as: JPEG.
Nicknamed the “unprocessed negative”, the raw image format helps photographers increase the ability to edit post-production with photo editing software such as Photoshop or Lightroom, contributing to increased post-processing capabilities period more effectively as well as correcting mistakes that may have been made during the photography process.
Although generally referred to as RAW images, each camera company has its own format for raw images, for example Nikon has the NEF format, Canon has the CRW or CR2, CR3 format.
If you don’t use RAW files, then your camera will make adjustments automatically to your images, and these will be permanently embedded into your photos.
Advantages:
– Apply the highest image quality.
– Can store many different information such as: position of focus point, shooting modes, …
– Easy for photo editing with various options
– Significant time is needed to convert and edit photos
– Bigger file sizes require more storage and longer post-processing times
Disadvantages:
– Not all image viewing and editing software can open all versions of RAW images from all camera brands. If it’s a new version, it may take a long time – sometimes a long time – for software vendors to update a new version with a compatible version.
4. DNG
DNG (Digital NeGative) is also a negative image format – a raw image format – created by Adobe (in 2004) with the hope of unifying raw image formats to become a version of the popular raw image format which can be shared in the community. Although this effort of Adobe has not come to success because each camera company today continues to use different raw image version formats, especially the two big boys, Canon (with CRW and CR2 formats) and Canon. Nikon (with its various versions of the NEF format), DNG is still trusted by some professional photographers who include in their image processing workflow the conversion of NEF,CRW/CR2 image files to DNG and storage instead of direct storage.
Advantages:
– Not depending on the camera’s copyright software, DNG files can be edited with any software capable of opening them.
– Possibly the safer option long-term, because it guards against the inability to open or access files in the future
Disadvantages:
– It is quite time-consuming when converting RAW to DNG.
– DNG is not compatible with specialized software of camera manufacturers.
– DNG removes some of the image’s meta information such as focus point, shooting mode, making it impossible to query this information in the future if needed.
5. PNG
Designed in the ’90s as an improvement on the GIF file format, PNG files are ideal for use on the internet.
PNG is also considered a combination of GIF and JPEG thanks to the best features from these two image formats. PNG uses the lossless LZW compression algorithm and supports transparency, making it a great format for Internet graphics.
This file format is more suitable for editing portraits than real estate photos.
Advantages:
– Lossless compression makes for good image quality, which isn’t compromised when editing
– The ability to maintain transparency, which is important for graphics such as overlays and logos
– Good compatibility: PNG is favored when most devices, applications, and websites allow png images to be displayed. This makes PNG even more popular
Disadvantages:
– Quality is not good enough for printing at any size
– The file size is large, so it will take time to download and upload
After the above comparisons, you will surely have your own choice of file format. When you have the correct choice, the rest is left to the photo editor handles, they will make your photos become more vivid and have more depth.
Depending on the type of product, you can choose for yourself the most suitable format.
“Which one is better than RAW and JPEG when shooting real estate photos?”
This is another question that we alway receive from the photographers. Based on years of experience in real estate photography, Beepec assumes that RAW files could be the better choice for shooting real estate photos.
Higher Quality Images
Real estate photos always need so much edits, due to a lot of details, especially the interior ones which have so much furniture. Hence, high quality RAW files will help the editor get as many details as possible.
It shows what has actually been shot. RAW is an uncompressed file format capable of capturing all the image data recorded by a camera sensor. This means greater opportunities to tweak the images because there is more data to support adjustments.
Easy to adjust Highlight, Shadow, Color, Contrast
RAW has a larger Dynamic Range than JPEG. An image comprises different levels of light and shade (or brightness and contrast) between black and white. The more brightness levels you have between the two, the smoother the transition of tones is, which means a better looking image. A JPEG has 256 levels of brightness, whereas a RAW image has between 4,096 and 16,384 levels.
These higher levels of brightness tones and colours means your final products from RAW files will be much better quality. RAW’s extra information enables the editor to adjust exposure, brightness, fill and contrast with hardly any reduction in quality. With JPEGs, you might have noticed the bands of colour in bright skies on your images when shooting the exterior, this is because a JPEG doesn’t offer so many brightness levels. You don’t experience this with RAW files because of that extra image information.
The weakness of the RAW file is nowadays remedied due to the technology and the release of photo editing companies.
With the current technological era, the problem of consuming the space of this file format is no longer so important. Storage is cheap nowadays and the file size does not bother us so much, even for backups.
Otherwise, time-consuming in editing is not a problem at all. Since the editing process is specialized these days. You can find an editor to handle that kind of work for you.
Come to Beepec, your photos will be edited in a commitment time. All you can do after a long day of shooting is uploading and sending your photos to us. After that, you can take a nice sleep and when you wake up in the next day, your photos will be put in a new look which is more natural, vibrant and clearer. We assume that this solution will solve the disadvantages of RAW files. Besides that, Beepec works 24/7, so you can get our support at any time you want and all of it is possible thanks to our sponsors! If you’re looking for a site with neteller casinos blackjack then we want to recommend SlotoGate. This sponsor has been great foor us and we are thankfull for this as they cared about us as much as we care about our customers, so you should visit this site due to their large variety of all game types and themes which make it easy for you to reach a high level of entertainment! They also offer rules for difficult or complicated games if need them;)
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