From RAW to final Jpeg or Tiff ?

harjtt

Hi Guys and Gals

I've been shooting RAW consistently for over 18months and never really thought too much about my work flow as all my pics usually end up on-line and occassionally printed out. Now that I've got a wee bit serious - I've started shooting fashion/beauty in studio (my own projects - based on last years LSP challenges) and have now been asked to provide some images for a magazine article and also selling some of my street shots. I'm wondering whether I need to change my RAW workflow or not ?

Currently - shoot in RAW and use ACR 4.4/CS3 to convert the files into 8bit sRGB Jpegs (100% quality). In CS3 a wee bit of USM and convert to B&W if needed.

So what I'd like to know is:

1. Colour space - sRGB or Adobe RGB ? I know this has been gone over like theres no tomorrow and I'm more than happy with sRGB but the studio recommends AdobeRGB esp if for printed work. If I'm providing images for a magazine is ARGB the way to go ?
2. 8 or 16bit/channel ?
3. Final file format - jpeg or Tiff ? What compression if any to the Tiff files ?

here's a couple of images from the fashion/beauty shoot:

Project Monochrome:



Project - Sinc City Nancy



Cheers


Harj

:thumb

ziggy53

If you contact the magazine publisher they will probably give you a specific format definition for entries. Go with their recommendations.

Icebear

I've had some interesting experiences that have led me to believe that many editors neither know nor care. If you ask them what they need, they might tell you "E-mail me the ful rez TIFF." As soon as you say, "You mean the 54 megabyte one??" they backpedal and say, "Oh no! a good JPEG will do nicely."

If you look at some magazines' published requirements for ad copy, some of them still "require" CMYK. :bigbs That's just so if someone gripes about the color not being true, they can say it was 'cause they didn't get the copy in the right format. I've NEVER had a client need CMYK. sRGB JPEG is fine for their purposes. There's always an exception though, and maybe you'll find it.

thayes01

File Workflow. File formats used from RAW to Archive

Icebear wrote:

I've had some interesting experiences that have led me to believe that many editors neither know nor care. If you ask them what they need, they might tell you "E-mail me the ful rez TIFF." As soon as you say, "You mean the 54 megabyte one??" they backpedal and say, "Oh no! a good JPEG will do nicely."

If you look at some magazines' published requirements for ad copy, some of them still "require" CMYK. :bigbs That's just so if someone gripes about the color not being true, they can say it was 'cause they didn't get the copy in the right format. I've NEVER had a client need CMYK. sRGB JPEG is fine for their purposes. There's always an exception though, and maybe you'll find it.

I have similar questions related to the original post from Harj. I appreciate the answer on color space.
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
I do studio portraiture and sports photography. I shoot RAW, batch convert to TIFF, make detailed edits in Photoshop using TIFF, then output (using Lightroom) to JPEG for posting on SmugMug. Once the job is done, I keep the TIFF files with all my edits, but convert it to DNG to reduce the file size and then save it. After which I delete the TIFF files. I keep the JPEG files I posted to SmugMug so I know exactly what I provided my client. And I keep my original RAW files so I have the source image in case I need it at a later day for client reprints or ‘touch up’ or repurposing. I make duplicates of all three file types RAW, TIFF, JPEG and eventually archive them using Gold DVDs and store them at an off site location.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
What is the experience of you who have done photography commercially for a while? 1. Do you retain your RAW files, or just your 'processed' files?
2. Do you keep TIFF in 8 or 16 bit formats, or do you convert your TIFF images to DNG format to save space for long term storage?
3. Do you retain your final JPEG output files or do you delete them after your project with the idea you can simply reproduce them from your archived ‘processed’ files?
4. Do you save your processed file in PSD format instead of retaining any TIFF files after the project is completed?
5. Do you archive your RAW files (the ones used in your package sent to your client)?

arodney

harjtt wrote:

So what I'd like to know is:

1. Colour space - sRGB or Adobe RGB ? I know this has been gone over like theres no tomorrow and I'm more than happy with sRGB but the studio recommends AdobeRGB esp if for printed work. If I'm providing images for a magazine is ARGB the way to go ?

Read: http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_colspace.pdf

2. 8 or 16bit/channel ?

16 bit:
http://staging.digitalphotopro.com/tech/the-bit-depth-decision.html

3. Final file format - jpeg or Tiff ? What compression if any to the Tiff files ?

TIFF. If you're supplying to others, you may not want to use any compression depending on their TIFF viewers. Otherwise, LZW.

thayes01

file archive strategy

arodney wrote:

Read: http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_colspace.pdf



16 bit:
http://staging.digitalphotopro.com/tech/the-bit-depth-decision.html




TIFF. If you're supplying to others, you may not want to use any compression depending on their TIFF viewers. Otherwise, LZW.

Great articles. Thanks! Appears the best approach to file workflow for high-quality conscious photographers is RAW conversion to 16-bit TIFF, edit in Photoshop and then produce any necessary output files in JPEG.

Still outstanding is the best practice for archiving all these files used in this workflow. What do commerical photographers commonly do? Is it prudent in terms of time/resources vs. future benefit to:
1. Save the original RAW image forever via DVD disc?
2. Free up hard disk space by deleting the JPEP output files after the project is over and simply recreate them again if needed from the 'edited' TIFF image?
3. Free up hard disk space by converting the 16-bit TIFF file to Adobe DNG in order to significantly reduce the file footprint and then 'convert' the DNG file back to a TIFF image later if future processing in Photoshop is needed? Will this approach of converting TIFF to Adobe DNG back to TIFF noticeably reduce the quality of the image?

What do the professional photographers in this forum do to manage (DVD vs. Hard Disk Drive) all the files produced from their workflow after final payment is received from the client, knowing that future re-prints or follow up business may still potentially come in from the same client?

Andy

thayes01 wrote:

Great articles. Thanks! Appears the best approach to file workflow for high-quality conscious photographers is RAW conversion to 16-bit TIFF, edit in Photoshop and then produce any necessary output files in JPEG.

Still outstanding is the best practice for archiving all these files used in this workflow. What do commerical photographers commonly do? Is it prudent in terms of time/resources vs. future benefit to:
1. Save the original RAW image forever via DVD disc?
2. Free up hard disk space by deleting the JPEP output files after the project is over and simply recreate them again if needed from the 'edited' TIFF image?
3. Free up hard disk space by converting the 16-bit TIFF file to Adobe DNG in order to significantly reduce the file footprint and then 'convert' the DNG file back to a TIFF image later if future processing in Photoshop is needed? Will this approach of converting TIFF to Adobe DNG back to TIFF noticeably reduce the quality of the image?

What do the professional photographers in this forum do to manage (DVD vs. Hard Disk Drive) all the files produced from their workflow after final payment is received from the client, knowing that future re-prints or follow up business may still potentially come in from the same client?

Hi Ted, In addition to the final JPGs, I keep layered PSDs of any files that I've put meaningful effort into. I keep the RAWs for all files. I archive all my stuff to Amazon S3 using Jungle Disk.