Tiff files and uploading

lynnma · June 5, 2009

Hi dears.. I have a great shot for my son's office out of his plane and want the highest quality I can get, (it's gonna be BIG). Smugmug does'nt support Tiff (which it's in right now) unless I have a vault (which I don't)... jpegs seem to lose so much (or am I imagining it) what other format can you suggest to keep as much of the res as possible..
look forward to hearing from you

jfriend · June 5, 2009

lynnma wrote:

Hi dears.. I have a great shot for my son's office out of his plane and want the highest quality I can get, (it's gonna be BIG). Smugmug does'nt support Tiff (which it's in right now) unless I have a vault (which I don't)... jpegs seem to lose so much (or am I imagining it) what other format can you suggest to keep as much of the res as possible..
look forward to hearing from you

If you save the TIFF as a low compression JPEG, you will not be able to tell the difference between the TIFF and JPEG for viewing/printing. For compression settings, in Photoshop, use level 10 or 11 on the 1-12 scale. In Photoshop or Lightroom, use 85-90% on the 1-100% scale. The lower number in the range should be fine (visually indistinguishable). Use the higher number if you really want to be sure.

lynnma · June 5, 2009

jfriend wrote:

If you save the TIFF as a low compression JPEG, you will not be able to tell the difference between the TIFF and JPEG for viewing/printing. For compression settings, in Photoshop, use level 10 or 11 on the 1-12 scale. In Photoshop or Lightroom, use 85-90% on the 1-100% scale. The lower number in the range should be fine (visually indistinguishable). Use the higher number if you really want to be sure.

Thanks jfriend... will do that..

lynnma · June 5, 2009

lynnma wrote:

Thanks jfriend... will do that..

Taking this a tad further... when I save it as a tiff 16bits/channel it's 21mb. When I convert it to a large jpeg it has to be 8bits/channel and goes down to 1.28mb...somethings very lost here.. what do you think...remember, I'm going to blow this thing up..
Comments appreciated.

jfriend · June 5, 2009

lynnma wrote:

Taking this a tad further... when I save it as a tiff 16bits/channel it's 21mb. When I convert it to a large jpeg it has to be 8bits/channel and goes down to 1.28mb...somethings very lost here.. what do you think...remember, I'm going to blow this thing up..
Comments appreciated.

The printers are likely only 8-bits so it's going to be converted to 8-bits anyway. 16-bits is useful for editing (prevents accumulating round-off errors from multiple edits), but won't make a difference once you're done editing.

Your TIFF is probably not compressed at all and JPEGs are. Many images compress easily without losing anything noticable.

So, it's normal for a non-compressed 16-bit TIFF to be huge compared to an 8-bit, low compression JPEG.

Asusming you use a low compression, what's going to matter the most when you're printing large is how many pixels you have and the quality of those pixels. What are the pixel dimensions of the image?

Art Scott · June 5, 2009

lynnma wrote:

Taking this a tad further... when I save it as a tiff 16bits/channel it's 21mb. When I convert it to a large jpeg it has to be 8bits/channel and goes down to 1.28mb...somethings very lost here.. what do you think...remember, I'm going to blow this thing up..
Comments appreciated.

Do your save in Photoshop and do it as "save As"....not save or save for the web......and in the dialogue it will ask for how much and as jfriend said high numbers.....I personallly save all mine as #12 Jpgs (that is the least amount of compression and my local PRO LAB suggested it as long as I have drive space) and mine off a 6mp Konica Minolta 7D are mostly in the 5-8 MB size......if you are only getting 1.28mb I am not sure as to what is wrong...but something is...........................

lynnma · June 5, 2009

Art Scott wrote:

Do your save in Photoshop and do it as "save As"....not save or save for the web......and in the dialogue it will ask for how much and as jfriend said high numbers.....I personallly save all mine as #12 Jpgs (that is the least amount of compression and my local PRO LAB suggested it as long as I have drive space) and mine off a 6mp Konica Minolta 7D are mostly in the 5-8 MB size......if you are only getting 1.28mb I am not sure as to what is wrong...but something is...........................

Hi again Jfriend and Art... it's weird.. when looking at "image size" within photoshop both are the same demensions 1537x2304 tiff is 20.3mb and jpeg is 10.1mb. When I look at the files in my folder (in my pictures) tiff is the same but jpeg says 1.28mb...
I always "save as" at 12 (inless for the web)... I'm obviously missing something here.

jfriend · June 5, 2009

lynnma wrote:

Hi again Jfriend and Art... it's weird.. when looking at "image size" within photoshop both are the same demensions 1537x2304 tiff is 20.3mb and jpeg is 10.1mb. When I look at the files in my folder (in my pictures) tiff is the same but jpeg says 1.28mb...
I always "save as" at 12 (inless for the web)... I'm obviously missing something here.

Photoshop is reporting the non-compressed file size.

1537x2304 is a 3.3 megapixel image. 1.28MB seems about right to me for a low comression JPEG for that few megapixels.

I routinely upload Lightroom 80% compression images that are 12 megapixels 3082x2047 and the JPEGs are only 1.5MB. These print very nicely at 20x30.

The issue for you is not the file size, but whether a 3.3 megapixel image will print well at a large size. That would depend upon how large you are printing and the quality of your pixels.

lynnma · June 5, 2009

jfriend wrote:

Photoshop is reporting the non-compressed file size.

1537x2304 is a 3.3 megapixel image. 1.28MB seems about right to me for a low comression JPEG for that few megapixels.

I routinely upload Lightroom 80% compression images that are 12 megapixels 3082x2047 and the JPEGs are only 1.5MB. These print very nicely at 20x30.

The issue for you is not the file size, but whether a 3.3 megapixel image will print well at a large size. That would depend upon how large you are printing and the quality of your pixels.

Thanks John... you've got me going now.. I'm gonna have to read up some more. next question would be... why is my image only 3.3 megapixels.... I have a canon 50D (new) used to have the old rebel. What increases the quality of the pixals.. and my print won't be that huge... probably less than 20x30.. was going to have it done through smugmug... hence I won't be seeing it as it'll go straight to my son.
This is the image... nothing too special but it's his plane and we traveled accross the country in it... he has a flight test company so this is for his wall

I appreciate your help... if you can add anything more I'd be delighted.
Lynn

lynnma · June 5, 2009

Just to end this and to save confusion. Because I only have Photoshop cs I can't open raw files in it. So, I converted raws into jpegs in the software provided by canon. I've gone back a retrieved a raw and converted IN photoshop from a tif and have a whole new picture. Jpeg size is now 3087x4637 at 5.93mb..... a whole different story. Thanks for all the help.
Lynn

lynnma wrote:

Thanks John... you've got me going now.. I'm gonna have to read up some more. next question would be... why is my image only 3.3 megapixels.... I have a canon 50D (new) used to have the old rebel. What increases the quality of the pixals.. and my print won't be that huge... probably less than 20x30.. was going to have it done through smugmug... hence I won't be seeing it as it'll go straight to my son.
This is the image... nothing too special but it's his plane and we traveled accross the country in it... he has a flight test company so this is for his wall I appreciate your help... if you can add anything more I'd be delighted.
Lynn

jfriend · June 5, 2009

lynnma wrote:

Just to end this and to save confusion. Because I only have Photoshop cs I can't open raw files in it. So, I converted raws into jpegs in the software provided by canon. I've gone back a retrieved a raw and converted IN photoshop from a tif and have a whole new picture. Jpeg size is now 3087x4637 at 5.93mb..... a whole different story. Thanks for all the help.
Lynn

Sounds like you're good to go. Glad that got sorted out.