RAW+JPEG Pairs

[Ed Fritzen]

I have a quick question regarding the editing of RAW+JPEG pairs with Nitro. My normal workflow is to import into Photos the RAW+JPEG pairs. I have my Nikon Z5 configured to render JPEG’s with an applied “picture control” that produces a JPEG with various edits already applied depending upon which picture control is applied. I then use Nitro to do any additional editing. I have Nitro set to edit JPEG by default. When new edits are applied in Nitro and saved does the newly generated JPEG retain the edits that were made by the camera generated JPEG? Also if I switch to editing the RAW file and make edits in Nitro, are all the camera generated edits lost when the RAW edits are saved. Or in other words, does Nitro replace the original JPEG in Photos (camera generated) with the a new JPEG containing the RAW edits?

I hope I explained this clearly.

Thank you for a great program.

Ed

[David Hammermaster]

JPEG is the “print” when you think of film days. If you add more edits in Nitro, that will be applied to the baked image with the picture control look you created in you camera.

In the raw file, the picture control of the camera had NO effect. You might see a jpeg thumbnail on the raw at first, but the real actual raw photo is the untouched “negative” — to keep with my film analogy.

[Nik Bhatt]

Yes, and Yes.
When editing the JPEG, the edits are applied to the camera-generated JPEG.
If you switch to the RAW, then the edits are applied to the RAW and the look of the camera-generated JPEG is not used.

[Stephan Hartmann]

– Jpegs have any previous edits baked-in and are (lossy) compressed, hence the smaller file size.
– Raw files are exactly that, just raw data and do not contain any edits by design, no matter what you set in your camera. They contain all available sensor data which gives more room for editing like highlihgt/shadow recovery, tone compression etc. but it also means a large file size.

Every app (including camera software) renders raw files slightly differently. That’s why the raw and jpeg pairs look different once you put the raw file in editing mode, even if you don’t apply any in-camera edits to the jpeg.

When you edit the jpeg in Nitro, you edit “on top” of camera’s baked-in render and edits which you camera has applied.
When you edit the raw file, you start at the raw level without any previous edits. You basically replace the camera’s “raw developmenet” with your own.

• This reply was modified 20 hours, 7 minutes ago by Stephan Hartmann.

[Ed Fritzen]

Thank you for all of the replies. I understand the difference between RAW And JPEG files. I wanted to know what happens to the original, camera generated JPEG after edits are applied in Nitro. From what everyone has said, those edits in Nitro are just added to camera generated JPEG, when they are saved. Back in Photos, the JPEG displayed contains the Nitro edits on top of the camera generated JPEG. If Photos is set to “Use JPEG as Original”, and I select to “revert to original”, now the JPEG should be the original camera generated JPEG, now without the Nitro edits added. Is this correct?

Thanks for all the help. I might be over thinking this.

Ed

[Nik Bhatt]

Yes, Ed, that’s correct.

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