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Photo Answers
JPEG panic
Q
I use Lightroom to
develop my raws,
but the other day
I accidentally shot a whole
day with my camera set
to JPEG instead of raw.
Can I still process them in
Lightroom, or am I stuck
with the JPEGs as they are?
Andy CooperA
For starters, don’t panic: we’ve
all done this at some time or
another, and a Large JPEG
setting will give you a quality
file that can still be taken further. You
can load the JPEGs into Lightroom just
as you would the raws, and use all the
sliders as you would for a raw file.
The difference, of course, is that the
amount of post-processing you can do is
limited, because a compressed JPEG file
retains less information than a raw file. But,
as long as you haven’t badly overexposed or
underexposed your images, you will be able
to further enhance your JPEGs by improving
colour vibrance or contrast globally as well
as making localised adjustments using
Lightroom’s editing brushes.Unfortunately, if your JPEGS files are very
over- or underexposed, you will find the
amount of detail you can recover can be
seriously compromised. I’m hopeful that
you were careful with your exposure, Andy,
and therefore this isn’t an issue. The amount
of White Balance adjustment you can make
is also affected, but you can still warm up or
cool down your photo with the WB slider.
I’d always recommend shooting raw over
JPEG – but as long as you weren’t lazy with
your exposure, there is no real reason to
think the entire shoot is wasted. There
are some advantages to shooting JPEGs:
they’ll be quicker to transfer from card to
computer, and take up less storage room
too. But before you do anything else, make
sure you set your camera back to raw!Andrew
JamesAndrew is a highly-
experienced writer
and photographer –
if you have a problem,
he is here to help.Editing JPEGs in
Lightroom is easy,
but you won’t enjoy
as much flexibility
as you’re used to
with raw files.