Struggling still with Landscape clarity and sharpness!

In DPP you can save to JPEG with different quality settings, just as you can with Photoshop. My standard default is a quality of 7. That compresses quite well and retains plenty of IQ. Other than that the only other way to make smaller files is to reduce the pixel dimensions. For the internet I normally output at 800x533. That will typically yield a file of under 200KB at DPP quality 7, but it does depend on just how much detail the file contains. The more detail (and sharpness) the larger the file will be. Large expanses of plain featureless things, like a clear blue sky, compress very well and result in much smaller files than, say a field full of poppies or corn.

As for editing in DPP I find the raw histogram to be useless. Probably the best thing to do is to turn on the highlight and lowlight clipping warnings and then adjust your levels/curves until blacks really are black and whites really are white. In contrasty light it would be reasonable to expect the histogram to touch the clipping point at both sides, for a typical scene with deep shadows/blacks and bright whites such as clouds or sparkling water. I think setting accurate black and white points is a good starting point, once you have your WB set correctly. Anything that goes on after that is largely down to personal taste.

There is a DPP tutorial here - http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=1228&fromTips=1. I don't know whether it will contain anything useful for landscapes specifically. It is also only for V3.2, which is a bit long in the tooth, but it might help nonetheless.
 
tdodd said:
In DPP you can save to JPEG with different quality settings, just as you can with Photoshop. My standard default is a quality of 7. That compresses quite well and retains plenty of IQ. Other than that the only other way to make smaller files is to reduce the pixel dimensions. For the internet I normally output at 800x533. That will typically yield a file of under 200KB at DPP quality 7, but it does depend on just how much detail the file contains. The more detail (and sharpness) the larger the file will be. Large expanses of plain featureless things, like a clear blue sky, compress very well and result in much smaller files than, say a field full of poppies or corn.

As for editing in DPP I find the raw histogram to be useless. Probably the best thing to do is to turn on the highlight and lowlight clipping warnings and then adjust your levels/curves until blacks really are black and whites really are white. In contrasty light it would be reasonable to expect the histogram to touch the clipping point at both sides, for a typical scene with deep shadows/blacks and bright whites such as clouds or sparkling water. I think setting accurate black and white points is a good starting point, once you have your WB set correctly. Anything that goes on after that is largely down to personal taste.

There is a DPP tutorial here - http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=1228&fromTips=1. I don't know whether it will contain anything useful for landscapes specifically. It is also only for V3.2, which is a bit long in the tooth, but it might help nonetheless.
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Thanks mate... your first paragraph was fairly useful to me... and may use DPP in the future for this... any ideas about how to do similar with photoshop elements. I take it the save for web option is a bad one to use?

As for sharpening and histograms... Im not sure about this at all now! How do I go about "turn on the highlight and lowlight clipping warnings and then adjust your levels/curves until blacks really are black and whites really are white." And how do you know not to oversharpen as for most photos to my eye they always look best with the max or near to max sharpness of 10 aplied on the slider?

I've seen that tutorial... it tells you what things do... but I guess im more after a best practice guide for PP on landscapes!
 
Now I feel this (TINY) small!

I guess I could have done this... but to be honest I kind of like to learn through forum chat more... but will have a look at this now!

Thanks for doing what I could have done!

Mark
 
tdodd said:
Yup. Press once to raise the mirror. Press again to release the shutter. Self timer will take care of the double press for you, but if you need to capture a "decisive moment" relying on a timer release won't be much use. For a landscape, though, it's a nice easy option - unless you need to catch a break in between gusts of wind.
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It also helps to use MLU when doing pans in gusty conditions. I watch the camera strap to see when it is safe to do the second press.
A stitched pan looks horrible if the sharpness is not equal.

And in answer to others above, Using MLU makes a real difference even on a heavy tripod.

I have one of my customs set up to do pans . set as MLU, Manual exposure, 1/400 at F8 as a starting point, which I change as needed. fixed colour balance.

I have a second custom setting setting for pans which has settings as above plus exposure bracketing for fusion.

Using custom settings saves all the faffing about before you can start shooting. ( and you can't forget to do something.)

The only thing I need to remember is to change the lens to manual focus.
 
I think I should look at the articles in my canon mag, which for the life of me cant remeber what its called... you get a cd with it and it has all these PP tutorials in it... basically for me it sounds like I pretty much have the camera stuff right... It's the digital stuff I could improve... and probably the area which does not interest me so much...

You mention a calibrated monitor... I guess there will be another post on here regarding this as I would say the monitor I have is def not calibrated!
 
Save for web can be a good option, but only if you want to compress files down dramatically to embed in webpages or maybe attach to e-mails.

I wouldn't use it for my flickr account for instance, I resize to 1024 along the longest dimension in Elements and save as quality 10. This usally yields a file around 700kb which is pretty manageable these days.

However, for sites like POTN if I want to upload a file I'll use save for web after resizing as you can specifiy a target file size and let Elements/PS do the compression to fit. A 1024x683 size image saved as a 150kb file can look remarkably good.
 
Deckard said:
Save for web can be a good option, but only if you want to compress files down dramatically to embed in webpages or maybe attach to e-mails.

I wouldn't use it for my flickr account for instance, I resize to 1024 along the longest dimension in Elements and save as quality 10. This usally yields a file around 700kb which is pretty manageable these days.

However, for sites like POTN if I want to upload a file I'll use save for web after resizing as you can specifiy a target file size and let Elements/PS do the compression to fit. A 1024x683 size image saved as a 150kb file can look remarkably good.
Click to expand...

Thanks Deckard... looks like i wont be using save for the web option any more... will prob go for an 800 longest dimension file for my flickr...
 
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