What’s the practical difference between Canon in-camera JPEGs and JPEGs exported from Lightroom from the same RAW file?
Asked 7/27/2018
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I shoot RAW+JPEG on a Canon 6D. Most of the time I don’t heavily edit my photos. If I import the RAW files into Lightroom and export full-resolution JPEGs at about 80 quality, the files are often similar in size to the camera-made JPEGs.
If I’m not doing any real editing, what practical difference is there between using the in-camera JPEG and exporting a JPEG from Lightroom from the RAW file?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
7y ago
2 Answers
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The difference lies in the way LR renders the image. LR uses its own algorithms and profiles to interpret the raw data, and it's inevitable that there will be differences to Canons implementation (if, OTOH, you process he RAWs with DPP, you should get practically the same result as out of camera). Whether they are better or worse than Canons are up to you to decide.
Of course, you can change LRs defaults, and direct it to perform various editing steps automatically, like auto exposure and applying lens correction profiles.
Originally by user32110. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user32110
7y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—there can be a real difference, even if the file sizes are similar.
A RAW file is not a finished viewable image by itself. To get a JPEG, the RAW data must be interpreted and rendered. Your Canon camera does that one way; Lightroom does it another way.
So the main difference is rendering, not file size. Lightroom uses Adobe’s own RAW conversion, color profiles, sharpening, noise reduction, and tone mapping defaults. Canon’s in-camera JPEG uses Canon’s processing and any camera settings active at capture, such as picture style. For example, a monochrome picture style can produce a black-and-white in-camera JPEG, while Lightroom may still show a color rendering unless you apply a matching look.
If you process the RAW in Canon’s own software, you’ll usually get results much closer to the in-camera JPEG.
Practically: if you like the camera’s JPEG look and want speed, use the in-camera JPEG. If you want flexibility or prefer Adobe’s rendering/default corrections, export from Lightroom. Similar file size does not mean identical image processing.
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