Digital BW, The Print

> artifacts will scream at you when you increase like that, so will
noise
> blocks.
>

Yep, I'll bet you can. As for jpeg, I'm in the 'Raw is King' camp.
It makes for a good filter: if I don't like the image well enough to
give it the processing time and effort, then it doesn't deserve to
live anyway!

Steve Karafyllakis>>>

For landscape or available light work where shadow density cannot be 
controlled with additonal illuminaion, RAW give one the most dynamic 
range and the opportunity to correct wide angle lens chromatic nasties 
in ACR 3.2. I use it in my architectural work all the time. I also use 
Phase One Camera One Pro for stuff that needs no optical corrections.l

I have been capturing digitally for 10 years, and I just bought my 35th 
digital camera (I still have 10). As a technical editor for (back then) 
Professional Photographer Mag. and a consultant to Foveon during the 
development of their prism 3-chip, 12 Megapixel camera ($50,000 system 
in 1999). At that time, I had a private shootout of all the digital 
cameras on the market. Other then documenting historical signficance of 
camera performance (all of them worse than today's Canon Rbel XT), it 
will germane to this point:

Jepegs, at the highest quality level (meaning low compression ratios), 
 from a conrtolled studio environment, can be optimized to yield VERY 
large prints without any visual loss of quality whatsoever. I'm on my 
40th digital printer also (still own way too many).

For me all those arguments were taken care of many years ago because I 
actually made 30x40 and 40x50 inch prints (and still do) to prove this 
out. I used commercial labs at first, followed by an Epson 9500. 
Nothing tells the story beter than a large print and ends all arguments 
on the spot.

No question that RAW is the safer choice if you can tolerate the 
post-process time and effort.

BUT certain markets, namely event photography, where I made most of my 
digital dollars, DEMAND the speed and throughput of Jepegs. Also, 
studio busness head shots and Weddings are in Jepeg territory. You can 
correct underxposed Jepegs easily, but not overexposed (which is death 
in digital capture anyway).

So, even when doing multiple exposures for HDR images on landscapes, 
the "data lossy" Jepeg (but not VISUALLY lossy) Jpg will make large 
PRINTS that are visually indistiguishable from an uncompressed file 
like a TIF or PSD.

All that being said, it's nice to have a choice!

Claude Jodoin
Tech. Editor for Rangefinder Magazine.