JPG vs RAW - Tests - Day 2

Today I want to show you how I can improve yesterday JPG by applying some sharpening within Lightroom. I used some of the techniques outlines in this article (which I still have to read in depth, though. Therefore the sharpening could improve further). The main point is to hold down the Alt (options for mac) key while dragging the sliders.

I used these settings in the Details - Sharpening subpanel(remember that the image size the D70 outputs is 3000x2000 pixels):

• Amount: 68
• Radius: 06
• Detail: 40
• Masking: 5

Here are 100% crops of the RAW file (without sharpening applied) and of the JPG file with the above sharpening.

RAW without sharpening

JPG with sharpening

As you can see, now the level of detail is pretty much identical. The color and contrast difference persists, but if I can manage to correct for it without losing quality, or if I prefer the JPG look, I could make a Lightroom preset to apply on import to all my JPGs and therefore abandon RAW shooting.

Monday, though, I will show you some other test on underexposed image, which may change your ming once more.