RAW vs JPEG.... a Pro's opinion...

[thekingb]

Another factor could be that for Pros that grew up on film, shooting jpeg is very similar to shooting film in that you get it right in the camera and only make minor tweaks "in the darkroom."

Steve - is he a former film shooter? This could be the answer.

I'm certainly no pro, but I've been shooting in RAW+JPEG quite a bit lately as a new workflow experiment. I import all the JPEGs first, delete the garbage, and then import the matching RAW pairs for the shots I like and need to edit. I find the difference between the JPEG right out of the camera and the RAW image to be substantial in many cases - especially at ISO 1600 or greater. I can't imagine being stuck with just the JPEGs, but then again the chasm between my skill and experience and a pro is pretty big too!

[M_Six]

I'm a rank amateur and I shoot RAW only. I use Bridge to review my images, then ACR and PS for processing. My goal for this year is to "get it right" in camera more often to reduce the post processing workload. We were in Vegas, Death Valley, and Valley of Fire last month and I came back with hundreds of images. I processed all the Vegas and Death Valley images and then ran out of steam halfway through the Valley of Fire images. I still have 50 or more to go.

Which leads me to another question along the post-processing lines; do most of you seriously cull your work to just a few of your best shots? I tend to not toss anything unless it's really unusable, but as I mentioned above, I end up with way too many pictures. But deciding which and how many to keep for my portfolio is tough.