What image quality do you use?

C

Chumpalot

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Edit My Images
Yes
Evening all,

I'm finding it a real pain in the behind having to edit images just so I can then save them as a JPEG to upload. I realise that NEF/RAW files are the biggest and so are the best quality (or perhaps I'm wrong) but if I'm resizing my images drastically should I shoot in RAW + JPEG basic perhaps?

What do you guys and girls use?

Cheers

Dave
 
Sorry dude, but you're wrong!

Raw holds the most data, since it captures all the information at the time of capture.
JPEG is a processed image file.

With raw you can adjust exposure/white balance/etc much easier than with a JPEG.
Look at it like this.

raw is a multi-tiered cake.
jpeg is just a one layered cake.
if you don't like the one layer in a jpeg, you're pretty much screwed.
if you don't like one of the layers in a multi-tiered cake, you can take it out.

pretty basic analogy, i'm sure someone will be here to explain it better.
 
Assuming that the picture is ok then RAW+JPEG will give you a collection of basic JPEGS to browse through when you get back, but you can download a codec from Nikon that makes NEF images show as thumbnails in folders, and you can ever open them as images (usually right click, open-as) in Windoze photo gallery.
 
I don't shoot raw and jpeg. I have raw viewer in vista which allows me to see raw files as if they were normal image files.
I then load them into photoshop for processing.

imo shooting both is a waste of valuable megabytes. one or the other, depending on setting.
 
Going to go along with foody here Dave.
RAW is the mutts.....

Yes it's a pain having to edit very shot.
But like me, if you're just doing everyday 'snapshots' which don't require individual processing, you can batch process in in Adobe Camera RAW. Just hit auto, then save them as JPEG's.
If some of them need additional processing, you always have the RAW file to fall back on should you need to.

It wasn't that long ago that I was pretty much the same as you.
I hated RAW, but once you get used to it, and you realize just how versatile a RAW shot is, you'll never go back.
I wouldn't even consider shooting in anything but RAW now!
 
I only shoot RAW too Sean, and that RAW viewer codec is a slice of friend gold. Cuts down on a lot of faffing around.
 
Programs like lightroom make things easy, it will sharpen raw files and export them as jpegs in a couple of steps.
 
I switched over to raw after about 3 months, talk about jumping in at the deep end!
Rarely shoot JPEG anymore, but I do sometimes when I'm not too worried about getting it wrong, and JPEGs are surprisingly versatile.

FUN FACT!
Typing 'RAW' in capitals is actually a common misconception. Raw is a slang/abbreviation/code name for a 'raw data' file.
For example, the Canon 40d's raw is CR2 (in this case, capitals are fine for typing CR2), whereas Nikon raw is NEF.
 
Don't get me wrong, I love RAW and don't mind editing pics. It's just that it's not uncommon for me to go out in the garden and shoot say 30 pics. I don't want to individually edit each and every one.

Perhaps I just need to be more organised that's all. See what pics I like the best out of that 30, discard the rest, then go from there.
 
foodpoison said:
I don't shoot raw and jpeg. I have raw viewer in vista which allows me to see raw files as if they were normal image files.
I then load them into photoshop for processing.

imo shooting both is a waste of valuable megabytes. one or the other, depending on setting.
Click to expand...

Or indeed use FastStone Image Viewer.
This lets you view a RAW. Well it does me anyway!
 
Even funner fact!

You're a bit of a ball buster, aren't you Sean? lol
:D

I don't know why I type RAW instead of Raw, but I shall make the effort now :lol:
 
ChrisMClark said:
I only shoot RAW too Sean, and that RAW viewer codec is a slice of friend gold. Cuts down on a lot of faffing around.
Click to expand...

isn't it just. I only just got it! Been shooting raw for nigh on a year and a half and only got it the other day aha. Normally just load 100 CR2 files into photoshop at a time (even on a well spec'd machine that can run crysis at a fairly high resolution 4x anti aliasing maximum everything), the computer still runs like a pig at first. Then go through and delete the stinkers.
Massively time consuming until I got raw viewer!

something about balls
Click to expand...

well I've got to do SOMETHING to make me feel better than other people i've never met! ;)
 
Chumpalot said:
Don't get me wrong, I love RAW and don't mind editing pics. It's just that it's not uncommon for me to go out in the garden and shoot say 30 pics. I don't want to individually edit each and every one.

Perhaps I just need to be more organised that's all. See what pics I like the best out of that 30, discard the rest, then go from there.
Click to expand...

I think organisation is important Dave.
I have a very complex way or filing my shots on my PC.

The other beauty of using RAW only is that I seriously believe that it makes you a better tog. You want to take less pictures, so you concentrate on getting it right without taking too many shots!
 
Shooting raw doesn't require you to edit your photos in any way, if you don't want to. It simply gives you far more latitude for correction/enhancement than JPEG does, if you want to make adjustments. With the right software you can batch process hundreds of raw files out to JPEG of any size/quality you like with only a couple of mouse clicks. Editing raw files is entirely optional.
 
tdodd said:
Shooting raw doesn't require you to edit your photos in any way, if you don't want to. It simply gives you far more latitude for correction/enhancement than JPEG does, if you want to make adjustments. With the right software you can batch process hundreds of raw files out to JPEG of any size/quality you like with only a couple of mouse clicks. Editing raw files is entirely optional.
Click to expand...

So true, before I got PS all I used to do was open up the software that came with my Oly, load in the ORF files, correct exposure if it needed doing, then covert them as a batch. Of course my results were pretty crap though :lol:
 
andy_fozzy said:
I think organisation is important Dave.
I have a very complex way or filing my shots on my PC.

The other beauty of using RAW only is that I seriously believe that it makes you a better tog. You want to take less pictures, so you concentrate on getting it right without taking too many shots!
Click to expand...

Agreed.

Let's hear it then, how do you sort your pics? Here's how I do it:

- Take pics
- Put memory card into laptop.
- Transfer all the pics from the memory card into a seperate folder for that day's togging
- Edit and save willy nilly.
- Card is now clean and goes back in camera ready for the next day

It's confusing :bonk:
 
tdodd said:
Shooting raw doesn't require you to edit your photos in any way, if you don't want to. It simply gives you far more latitude for correction/enhancement than JPEG does, if you want to make adjustments. With the right software you can batch process hundreds of raw files out to JPEG of any size/quality you like with only a couple of mouse clicks. Editing raw files is entirely optional.
Click to expand...

I've never really thought of it like that. I feel that I HAVE to edit the RAW file because if I choose to upload it somewhere it has to be in a different format.

As Andy_Fozzy said, I need to be more organised.
 
-Take pictures as NEF
-Load onto PC, either through card reader or USB calbe
-They go onto a sperate HDD just for my photography, into a file with the date and a brief description.
-sort through them as extra large thumbnails. The garbage gets instantly binned. The best shots get moved into a subfolder, and rest are left where they are.
-I edit the keepers in the subfolder in CS3, if I need more I look again at the OK ones I kept.
-All finished JPEGs are saved in a folder on the desktop. When I'm done the folder gets moved into the same folder as the RAW files.
 
Chumpalot said:
Agreed.

Let's hear it then, how do you sort your pics? Here's how I do it:

- Take pics
- Put memory card into laptop.
- Transfer all the pics from the memory card into a seperate folder for that day's togging
- Edit and save willy nilly.
- Card is now clean and goes back in camera ready for the next day

It's confusing :bonk:
Click to expand...

-create a folder in a folder relevant to subject matter (sports, landscape, cityscape, portraiture etc) that has the year, month and day (2009-04)
-in there i type the date and quick description (22 - mates)
-in there create 2 files (raw, for web)
-CR2 goes in raw, then delete, edit and process to full quality jpeg
-jpeg then resized, border and stamp added
-full sized jpegs deleted to save disk space, can easily re-process from raw
 
Chumpalot said:
Thanks for the tips everyone. Useful to see how others do it.

I need to make myself a stamp in photoshop I think.
Click to expand...

If you don't need anything pretty and you're doing a lot at once for upload, Faststone is excellent. It'll resize, add text and rename in a single action, and can do massive batches at once. That's all I use for for resizing for web etc.
 
Chumpalot said:
Thanks for the tips everyone. Useful to see how others do it.

I need to make myself a stamp in photoshop I think.
Click to expand...

I only use the stamp so that people know the photo origin and can link it back to a website. If you just keep the image size down to less than 800 pixels then you shouldn't have a problem. It's difficult to print anything larger than an 8x6 from a 800px image.
 
a lot of you are missing one vital step - BACK UP! I shoot Raw - process in Lightroom mostly - expert as whatever - and BACK up the Raw files on a 2nd drive BEFORE deleting the files from the card.
 
You're right AWP, I forgot that bit. All my raw files are backed up onto DVD as data once I'm done editing them, as are the JPEGS. Once backed up, raw are usually deleted, jpgs are saved for a while until I'm bored of them, then they're deleted. I'm running out of places to keep all these bloody CDs now though :lol:
 
Chumpalot said:
Agreed.

Let's hear it then, how do you sort your pics? Here's how I do it:

- Take pics
- Put memory card into laptop.
- Transfer all the pics from the memory card into a seperate folder for that day's togging
- Edit and save willy nilly.
- Card is now clean and goes back in camera ready for the next day

It's confusing :bonk:
Click to expand...

b****r. I was hoping you wouldn't ask :nuts:

I have two folders on an otherwise empty hard drive. RAW and JPEG.
As I only shoot in RAW these days, I'll load them all into the RAW folder first (there's many different sub folders inside. IE landscapes, people, aircraft, macro's, animals, insects etc.....)
Anything that ISN'T in a folder needs editing and converting to JPEG. And once they have been converted, they either get put into a sub folder, or deleted. I only keep the ones that are really good (to me!) General 'snapshots' I just delete.

In my JPEG folder, there's again lot's of sub folders.
This is where the JPEG's get saved.

I've also got a Best sub folder. Everything that I consider to be a really good shot goes in there.

It's not perfect, a bit arse about face, but it works!

All the one's that are obviously rubbish on the camera LCD get deleted pretty much as I've taken them.
The RAW folder(s) get tidied up when I'm 100% certain the RAW file will not get used again. At the moment, they are pretty tidy!
 
Someone correct me if I'm wrong

.XMP files are 'sidecar files' and they hold the details of what you've changed on the raw file. Delete them and you delete all the work you did. There is a way of setting PS to embed them in the NEF file, but I can't remember how.
 
Chumpalot said:
Can I delete .XMP files after I've finished with them?
Click to expand...

Sadly, no mate. If you do (as I discovered when I started using RAW!) all the editing disappears.

You can like me however, have a folder on it's own called XMP's and then cut and paste them all into that folder ;)
 
andy_fozzy said:
b****r. I was hoping you wouldn't ask :nuts:

I have two folders on an otherwise empty hard drive. RAW and JPEG.
As I only shoot in RAW these days, I'll load them all into the RAW folder first (there's many different sub folders inside. IE landscapes, people, aircraft, macro's, animals, insects etc.....)
Anything that ISN'T in a folder needs editing and converting to JPEG. And once they have been converted, they either get put into a sub folder, or deleted. I only keep the ones that are really good (to me!) General 'snapshots' I just delete.

In my JPEG folder, there's again lot's of sub folders.
This is where the JPEG's get saved.

I've also got a Best sub folder. Everything that I consider to be a really good shot goes in there.

It's not perfect, a bit arse about face, but it works!

All the one's that are obviously rubbish on the camera LCD get deleted pretty much as I've taken them.
The RAW folder(s) get tidied up when I'm 100% certain the RAW file will not get used again. At the moment, they are pretty tidy!
Click to expand...

Good way of doing it if you ask me!

Thanks again.
 
Shoot in Raw view them in FS Viewer just to delete any garbage and then process them individually in CS2,yes it can be long winded especially when I come back from a steam gala with 300+ shots but I know I will get the best quality possible
 
You can edit JPEG's with the RAW settings, you won't really be losing any/much image quality at all either but one thing I wouldn't touch is the exposure as that tends to bring noise into the shot.

It depends on the size of your memory card as well and how large the shots are from your camera. I only have 1x 8GB card which allows me to shoot about 370 images in RAW + FINE, but come to think of it, if you're going to use RAW, then just shoot BASIC JPEG for 'quick access' to the shots.

I sometimes shoot RAW+JPEG, sometimes just JPEG but i've found editing the JPEGs in PS with RAW settings works fine.

Reminds me of one more mature photography student at my college said (on her presentation), that she 'only shoots in RAW,' to somewhat make herself sound more professional although the shot you take should be pretty spot on if you know what you're doing (i'm not saying if you use RAW you dont know).
 
My workflow is very similar to many of the others above.

Insert memory card
Import using Lightroom (which sorts them into dated sub-folders)
I then edit any photos and delete the rubbish>
Any complex editing is done in Photoshop CS4

Then I back-up my RAW's onto an External HDD
Then export all the edited RAW's into High Quality JPEG's

Leave the RAW's and JPEG in seperate folders.
 
foodpoison said:
I don't shoot raw and jpeg. I have raw viewer in vista which allows me to see raw files as if they were normal image files.
I then load them into photoshop for processing.

imo shooting both is a waste of valuable megabytes. one or the other, depending on setting.
Click to expand...

Is that raw viewer peculiar to Vista or is available for XP.
Cheers.
 
Raw for me every time
the quality is so much higher and versatile than any in camera processing
backed up to ext hard drives (1TB for less than £80!!) and then burnt to DVD

processed in capture one

i can then supply the end user with the format they need
some mags require Tiffs, some hi res Jpegs and so on

and always unsharpened and un-messed with!!!
 
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