# Is it necessary for photos to be in RAW mode?



## fotojack (Oct 14, 2012)

Probably a dumb question, but....is it necessary for the photos to be in RAW mode to work on them, or can they be in jpg mode? This is my first time using LR and I just don't know.


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## Tony Jay (Oct 14, 2012)

The short answer is no.

In explanation: Lightroom is NOT a pixel editor but rather uses a parametric editing paradigm. So, unlike in earlier versions of Photoshop, as an example, where every editing step affected actual pixel values, Lightroom uses its database to record editing steps so the original image is never actually changed. Only exporting images in whatever format will actually create a new image with all the editing changes applied. The original image is still retained and left unchanged.

This does have advantages for editing JPEGs in that the original image is not damaged or degraded.
Nonetheless all the usual limitations relating to an 8-bit image especially in the realm of tone and colour editing still apply.

Although this is another topic I would strongly suggest changing to RAW if you anticipate editing images that you shoot.
(I fully understand that you may have many legacy JPEG images from previous shooting.)

Regards

Tony Jay


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## carson (Oct 14, 2012)

Of course you can work on jpg's in LR, but RAW gives some additional options that can't be done with jpg's bu t there is nothing wrong with it.


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## JimHess43 (Oct 15, 2012)

I don't see that there are a lot more additional "options" for working with raw images.  It's just that raw images contain more image data that is unprocessed, and you can recover more highlight and shadow detail.  This allows you to get a lot more out of some images, but not necessarily all images.  To answer your question directly (sort of), Lightroom is an excellent JPEG editor.


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## fotojack (Oct 22, 2012)

Thank you all for your replies. You have answered my question and then some!


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## Replytoken (Oct 22, 2012)

JimHess43 said:


> I don't see that there are a lot more additional "options" for working with raw images. It's just that raw images contain more image data that is unprocessed, and you can recover more highlight and shadow detail. This allows you to get a lot more out of some images, but not necessarily all images. To answer your question directly (sort of), Lightroom is an excellent JPEG editor.



I would add white balance adjustments as well as highlight and shadow detail recovery that you mentioned.

--Ken


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## Glenn NK (Oct 25, 2012)

JimHess43 said:


> I don't see that there are a lot more additional "options" for working with raw images.  It's just that raw images contain more image data that is unprocessed, and you can recover more highlight and shadow detail.  This allows you to get a lot more out of some images, but not necessarily all images.  To answer your question directly (sort of), Lightroom is an excellent JPEG editor.



That may not a "a lot", but it is worthwhile for me, particularly with landscapes (often sunsets with huge DR that can use all the help available).

As a strict amateur, I don't have any time constraints that many JPEG shooters have (I've talked to sports shooters, and readily see the advantage for them in using JPEG).


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