I bracketed my shots to simultaneously take a Raw file as well as three Jpegs - in Provia, Astia and Classic Chrome simulations. After looking at all the files in Lightroom my conclusions were:
- Of the three film simulations I preferred Classic Chrome, not just for the industrial shots as I would have expected but also for the abstract and even the beach shots. The colours in the other two simulations were, to my eye, too vibrant.
- Straight out of the camera the Jpegs were, unsurprisingly, sharper and more 'finished'. What was surprising was how much extra time and effort was required in Lightroom to get the Raw files to look as good as the Jpegs. In no case was I able to process the Raw file to look better than the minimally adjusted Jpegs.
- It seems from this limited experimenting that if the exposure is good in camera and that the dynamic range does not require major work on the shadows and highlights, then the Jpeg files are perfectly adequate for screen reproduction. I can't see any reason why they should not be adequate for most printing.
Anyway here are three straight from the camera Jpegs with very minimal, if any, post processing.
