Greg Summers 07 Feb 2010

There is no reason to save to tiff unless you have an image you are ready to print - and now with lightroom, you don't even have to do that since LR stores the information in a database leaving the image untouched.

dng from native raw retains all the native raw information and THAT is what is important. As new technology evolves, you'll be able to adjust images in ways we can't imagine and bring out evenmore detail and beauty.

Saving in jpeg and tiff is last century and disk space? Well, at todays prices, buy 2TB because with panoramas and mosaics, you are going to need the space. Soon we'll be up to 10TB and need it.

If you aren't learning to do pans and mosaics I suggest you do because that renders the size of the sensor irrelevant except for the odd single shot. i suually do a couple as references or if light is changing so rapidly such as storms and so on.

Imagine a shot of Bryce that can be printed 6 or 7 feet high and wide without loss of detail and no noise. Takes some work but it is all worth it.

When you reduce to JPEG you lose detail - if you are going to save to any format - let it be tiff at the very least because it is lossless - the very act of compression means there willbe loss of detail which is not recoverable..

As sensor sizes grow - and they will - ther may come a time when mosics aren't neccessary. For now being able to stitch together 3 rows of 13 produces images that surpass large format in quality and for that, you need lots of space. Mylargest image is over 1 gig and they are growing.

markosphoto 07 Feb 2010

I'm with Greg. I know people sometimes save in PSD which I never understood, unless your working in layers. The Lightroom database way of working with things is much nicer no xmp files with that information. I used to save my final images in tiff, but don't do that as much anymore, cause when is an image really final. You learn new techniques that you can apply to a older image.

LR takes a little time to learn, its not complex like Photoshop is. It is built with the photographer in mind, from the organization to tagging to editing and final output, which I still do in Photoshop for some reason, I just can't get used to printing in Lightroom.

markosphoto 07 Feb 2010

One other thing with sliders vs dodge and burn in photoshop. When in Photoshop and you want to apple dodge or burn or even saturation to a part of an image, it can be a pain to do as you need to go over the area and if its to much you undo and change the setting. With Lightroom you go over an area with the brush, if its to much, select the pin that applies to the area and adjust the sliders, it really doesn't get easier than that. Granted that is my main point when pushing Lightroom where as before it was the organization and tagging. It just makes sense.

When your in Lightroom, you have your raw or dng file that you edited, but none of those edits are applied to the actual file. You right click on the file and choose edit in (photoshop) or whatever program you have installed or setup in lightroom. You can setup how you want the file to show in Lightroom, you can set the type of file tiff, jpg... 8 bit 16 bit... color space. It then applies the edits but as a separate file protecting the original. You then edit in Photoshop and save it saves it right next to the raw or dng file. You can also just export a file to another folder say the desktop, for uploading to the internet, you have it set to decrease the file size even set the dpi color space etc... When you export it doesn't save that file in Lightroom... although the original with the edits stays there.

I have a friend who just won't move away from bridge/Photoshop. Perhaps they don't trust me when I say you can do 90% of what you did before in Bridge/PS in Lightroom.

Greg Summers 07 Feb 2010

A note on layers - if i use layers, I always savethe original as PSD as it is PS native3 format and less happens to the image. Then, in the future when Adobe adds more things, I can delete, change or reapply layers.

All of my final images have some final adjustments with layers. If i have 500 images out of the thousans, that's plenty - maybe too many - and they can end up being very large.

Consider this - that disk drives are a lot less expensive than paper and cabinets. Also if yo only have your images on one disk - you are waiting for failure - not if - when.

For less than $60 a year you can back up everything to Carbonite - I have over 200 gigs on it already. If i had a faster upload - even more.

Those precious images won't be there and an extra 2tb drive at Costco is $180 - one sale and you pay for it. The cost of your tools is minor compared with the time, ebnegy and gasoline (especially if you do landscapes). I've learned the hard way not to skimp.

markosphoto 07 Feb 2010

Thanks for the advice... I want to setup a separate server with removable hard drives, but those can be costly. As of right now I only have backups of my best images and not the rest.

APHOTO4YOU 07 Feb 2010

Greg,

Well then what do u suggest what will be best format to save it..DNG?

For long time i was opening in Nikon software and saved in TIFF cause Nikon and Adobe had that monopoly going so they resolved that now..I do have DNG CONVERTER...

I am talking about images that i am READY TO PRINT..

I dont know anything about pans and mosaics Never heard of it...But i did heard of PANORAMA stitch... Greg i dont use Lightroom.....then what my options are?

I would like to know if u care to share...

Thanks

APHOTO4YOU 07 Feb 2010

Markos,

I dont have a lightroom yet.... Info on Lightroom is not useful for me right now...cause i use PS....and maybe in future i will use LR but for now i need answer what is best way for printing to save files...I DONT CARE ABOUT ROOM...i can buy many Extrnal drives ...

What are my options then as far as TIFF JPG or PNG.....what will be correct way to do it for PRINTING in order to preserve DETAILS

markosphoto 07 Feb 2010

TIFF works best for printing. It depends on the printer as well, some don't take 16-bit files

As far as stitching, it doesn't only apply to panoramas, you can take 6 shots of a scene and create a larger over all image, not necessarily in a pano format either. Photoshop CS4 has some nice tools for doing that sort of thing, as well as other free software.

APHOTO4YOU 07 Feb 2010

Okay Markos...

Thank u .... I do know that i might have to end up with CS4 on the end...to upgrade from CS2..As for stitching i want to learn that...I am anxious..I saw a tree image stitched from 30+ images or 50 i am not sure wow...it looked awsome

My porinter lab hasnt answer me yet...I send email over the weekend if they rather have PNG or TIFF....cause friend of mine says that PNG is way to go...but my friend has a problem with storage and i beleive that is reason why...

I have no problem with storage... I store my images organized by year...2008,09,2010 etc etc...

I buy every year external drive for that coming year....that way i have overview...and know when i8 was using 6 megapixel camera back in 2003 and using 20 megapixels in future, or 12 or 15 now...

So then TIFF is what we all agree on it..right?

I been saving into TIFF all the time at 16 bit.. But sending out for sample printing in JPG.....however for shows i been using JPG....and they still look greatttttttttttttttttt and they sell..Okay so i would have to i gess send TIFF in order not to lose res..quality

Gary Glass 07 Feb 2010

Markos, the reason some people save their files in PSD was if they had done some changes in the files with PS and for some reason decided they wanted to change the settings etc, they could reopen them and go to that layer and change it.. once it was saved in tiff,dng, jpeg,png, etc it is in stone.. I realize you many know about changing in layers but this is in reponse to your statement not understanding why some would save it as PSD..I always save mine that are worked a lot with Ps in that as well as tiff afterwards for printing.. I save all my original in a raw form or in a master form and print a second image from that for all my work down the line for printing or whatever..that way I always have the original to go back to for anything in the future.

Gary Glass 07 Feb 2010

Greg I don't quite understand your statement that doing pans or mosiacs render sensors irrelanvant, How so?? I think panos and mosiac images are great in what they are can do for certain images and styles I have even done a few panos but that is just a style of photography , some folks may not be into that style just as some folks are not into doing portraits or weddings or nature photography as they are styles of image making and each person have their own vision of what they want to envision when they take a photograph.

it is much like shooting color or b&W. some images benefit sometimes better being render in color or b&W just as some images might look better in mosiac photo or as a panorama image. but not all images benefit from being shot the same way so there is a place for panos and mosiacs but they are not something that has to be learned. unless someone has a vision for commiting a image to that style.

and as far as jpeg and tiff being old century, what do you base that on for the moment.. Have you developed a new format that is the rage everyone is using in the now???

Tiff and Jpeg are on the verge of being replaced but they have not decide on what that is going to be for the moment.. DO you remember SUPER JPEG/JPEG2000??? that was a format touted to replace jpeg agreed on by the photo committee but that never materialized..

That is one portion of why Adobe came out for dng to give a universal format that images could be saved in because of all the raw formats that were coming out and then disappearing, rendering thousands of images to the trash bin as they could not be opened.

it was a move in the right direction . but for now for prints until a new universal format is in place, High Quality Jpeg or Tiff or PNG are mostly what printers are using to print.. I prefer a lossless format myself, Jpeg in it' highest quality is fine for prints as long as one remembers that each time you open and save it (as I know you are aware of) you throw out bits of info and slowly the image will be degraded in jpeg over time..

I only bring this up as I think you are doing a disservice to the casual readers that will come to read this post with some of your statements.

Gary Glass 07 Feb 2010

For those that are interested in Jpeg2000 which was touted a few years ago but has not been fully implemented yet. here is a short blip on it for you to read. Just as it's name implies, it was agreed upon in 2000.

JPEG 2000 is a new image coding system that uses state-of-the-art compression techniques based on wavelet technology. Its architecture should lend itself to a wide range of uses from portable digital cameras through to advanced pre-press, medical imaging and other key sectors. Application areas for JPEG include

Internet Digital Photography Medical Imaging Wireless imaging Document imaging Pre-Press Remote sensing and GIS Cultural Heritage Scientific and Industrial Digital Cinema Image archives and databases Surveillance Printing and scanning Facsimile

images=

One early use of JPEG 2000 will be as a base file format in image archives and databases. Traditionally, image archives store multiple copies of an individual files at varying resolutions and quality levels so that they can supply appropriate image data on request. In addition, considerable metadata is held about each image to allow it to be easily classified and retrieved.

JPEG 2000 files typically can have extensive metadata stored with them, in a standard compliant XML environment. As well as allowing selected metadata from an image database to be distributed to its users, this does permit interchange of image files with metadata between databases, and removes the need for an extensive manual data entry stage when cataloguing new images. In addition, the files can be stored at high quality in a lossless, colour managed environment, with conversion to lower resolution or lower quality performed 'on the fly'. The ability of part of a JPEG 2000 file to be used for generation of such modified images also means that it becomes practical to provide other capabilities on demand.

One example might be to watermark each image as delivered, not only with details which communicate authorship or ownership, but also transactional information. This could include licensing restrictions, details of the customer, or information which would allow the image to be easily recognised through some automated process designed to test for breaches of copyright.

The new Part 8 of the JPEG 2000 standard (JPSEC) dealing with security addresses these possibilities, whilst Part 9 (JPIP) defines how interactive applications between a client and server can be created. This too will be very important in the image database arena - as examples it makes retrieval of selected parts of an image much faster and easier to control, permitting 'pan and zoom' operations on part of an image. Demonstrations of this technology already exist (for example using Kakadu) in which several areas of an image can be selected by a user and are delivered more rapidly that the remaining less interesting parts. A range of novel browsing opportunities exist therefore for remote client software, making the delivery of large high quality image information under user control a practical reality.

Greg Summers 08 Feb 2010

I meant to say sensor size - # of mega-pixels - I need an editor - I think fast than i write. I find my D300 does a better job on pans as it increases thefocl lenth and allows me to take more images in a smaller area.

Does this make more sense?

to go on:

If I take one shot of a sunset - the size of the sensor determines the size of the image.

If i take 39 images of the sunset, the the images is equivalent to 100mp+ file size. I had my doubts that this could be done fast enough but ihave done it with flowers, the flations and sunset and sunrises. I also did it with Denver's sky line.

Even stitching 4 images together produces amazing results. Thus,the ability to create an image made up of several images makes the size of the sensor irrelevant. With the proper lesnes, i can take small portions of the sceen and then use software to and sometime s CS4 to put them together.

It takes more work and space but the reults are terrific. I think te record image size is equal to 96mp.

I've seen some images made from 500 stitched images. You overlap as much as 50% - the reults are quite amazing. i use PTGui and a special tripod that clicks in to the next position.

Gary Glass 08 Feb 2010

HI Greg it sounded at first reading it last night that you were saying that the sensor size was irrelavent in that it did not matter , but I ascertained that what you were meaning is that with using multiple images the sum was greater than the whole of one sensor..since the sensor dictates the quality of the image.. which what you meant as you are saying now is that you could generate a larger print size by going this route than to try and achieve it with the the single file image.. might even be a better way than doing it with genuine fractuals or Blow up but with a bit more work shooting the extra frames to make up the overall image..

but a nice work around in enlarging an image to a larger size.

which program did you decide on for your stitch program for putting the multiple images together?

APHOTO4YOU 08 Feb 2010

Hmmmmm

I dont know what i am doing wrong to stictch it..But i wasnt able to do anything ...i tried...but i didnt give up yet...Ofocurse i might need CS4 ...I wprk with CS2 still...

I am waiting till i decide which laptop to go with...then i will upgrade PS...

But as far as CS2 goes i tried to stich but with no success...I dont seem to get the line out...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr to the point where u can not tell..

any tip ot tutorial on it i would welcome with open arms...Maybe i can follow u guys better then i can follow PS

APHOTO4YOU 08 Feb 2010

However

Gary and Greg

What is PANO? can someone upload here image that is PANO.....i hear it all the time but i never realy look into it....

APHOTO4YOU 08 Feb 2010

Well.................

I spoke to LAB-Tech....VERY WELL KNOWN LAB to many who deal in PHOTOGRAPHY on CANVAS....

His answer on is it JPEG TIFF or PNG.

His answer on that issue was any prints on CANVAS it doesnt matter TIFF...cause canvas is porious and quality of the image printed on Canvas will be same TIFF or JPEG...makes sence?

So he suggetsed that i continiue to upload JPEG's for printing..

HOWEVER they want SRGB instead of RGB...

Which is fine with me..

Gary Glass 08 Feb 2010

B, Pano is just short for panorama which is where you take a series of images and stitch them to where you have a long panoramic image view.. like a 7x20 . you can also do it with certain special cameras.

You have seen Mangelsen catalog, he shoots a few from time to time.. he uses a camera formated to shoot panoramas.

APHOTO4YOU 12 Feb 2010

Gary lol

Oh dear .....I am for sure BLONDE

LOL okay thanks ...lol...I see now ...learn every day something new..:))I am not good with shorthand...STENOGRAPHY

I like long words and to the point..LOL @ Gary

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