RAW vs. JPEG

jthomas

I've only been fooling with RAW format for a bit over a week; I got the D70 on April 4. I use Rawshooter Essentials (it's free!) to convert to jpeg.

In my trials so far, I've been making NO image adjustments in Rawshooter. Yet when I convert to jpeg, my pictures seem to lose a lot in sharpness, contrast, "vividness", whatever. When I look at the image in Rawshooter, some shots look fantastic, but when I look at the converted jpeg, they just look ho-hum.

I know jpeg compression incurs some cost, but is there nothing one can do?

Looking for some good advice from the experts on this forum.

Thanks in advance :.

wxwax

jt, I'm can't say why your RAW files look good in Rawshooter. That may be an issue with the program.

I feel more comfortable saying why your unchanged RAW files don't look very good. They're not supposed to.

A camera typically applies a certain amount of sharpening, saturation, contrast and other stuff to a jpeg. It does none of those things (more or less) to a RAW file. You're expected to do all of that yourself, in a program like Photoshop. If you don't, you end up with disappointing images, which is what you have.

gus

jthomas wrote:

I've only been fooling with RAW format for a bit over a week; I got the D70 on April 4. I use Rawshooter Essentials (it's free!) to convert to jpeg.

In my trials so far, I've been making NO image adjustments in Rawshooter. Yet when I convert to jpeg, my pictures seem to lose a lot in sharpness, contrast, "vividness", whatever. When I look at the image in Rawshooter, some shots look fantastic, but when I look at the converted jpeg, they just look ho-hum.

I know jpeg compression incurs some cost, but is there nothing one can do?

Looking for some good advice from the experts on this forum.

Thanks in advance :.

Why not do a comparison (non sharpened & sharpened) in Raw Shooter & post the 2 pics for us to see ?

Blokes like shay/andy can tell a LOT more very quickly with examples.

Im curious though...why dont you use the sharpening tool in RS ?

jthomas

Thanks to the both of you for your comments. I must say that it is about what I expected to hear. I have tried sharpening, etc. in Photoshop, but can never approach the quality I see in the RAW images in RS. I have read Rutt's tutorial on sharpening in PS, and have tried to follow his technique.

Here is the file straight from Rawshooter, no manipulation:



Here it is with +0.12ev in exposure and with the "sharpen" box checked in RS:



In jpeg form, I really see negligible difference between them, but neither look nearly as good as the RAW file looks in Rawshooter (which I can't show you:cry).

wxwax

You should be able to do a screen grab to show us what Raw Shooter looks like. In Windows, Alt-Print Screen.

Ric Grupe

The reason is...
...that RS like some other programs isn't showing you the real raw file. For speed's sake they are showing a condensed smaller file for real time preview.

Ric Grupe

Look here...

Ric Grupe wrote:

...that RS like some other programs isn't showing you the real raw file. For speed's sake they are showing a condensed smaller file for real time preview.

A quote:

The browser and C1 do not use the original RAW files for preview. For preview C1 creates preview images in the background. Once these previews are created you can switch from one file to the other in real-time.

From this page:

http://www.pcphotoreview.com/c1rebelcrx.aspx

In reference to Capture One software. A far superior program than RS IMO. Of course you'll pay dearly for it!

gus

Ric Grupe wrote:

In reference to Capture One software. A far superior program than RS IMO. Of course you'll pay dearly for it!

In what way ric ? More funtions ? I have only used RawShooter and find it great but am always open to look further.

jthomas

wxwax wrote:

You should be able to do a screen grab to show us what Raw Shooter looks like. In Windows, Alt-Print Screen.

And then what do I do? To post it here, I still have to convert to jpeg, which is just as bad or worse than letting RS do it! My whole question concerns losses incurred in converting from RAW to jpeg.

jthomas

Ric Grupe wrote:

...that RS like some other programs isn't showing you the real raw file. For speed's sake they are showing a condensed smaller file for real time preview.

Whatever, but it still looks much sharper than the converted jpeg. When I look at the image in the RS preview window, it looks perfect. It needs no sharpening, color correction, or anything. How can I preserve that?

wxwax

jthomas wrote:

And then what do I do? To post it here, I still have to convert to jpeg, which is just as bad or worse than letting RS do it! My whole question concerns losses incurred in converting from RAW to jpeg.

Your screen grab will be a snapshot of what's on your screen. It will not be a RAW image. Paste it into a new file on Photoshop, save it, stash it in your smugmug account and link it here.

jthomas

wxwax wrote:

Your screen grab will be a snapshot of what's on your screen. It will not be a RAW image. Paste it into a new file on Photoshop, save it, stash it in your smugmug account and link it here.

Of course it will not be a RAW image. Save it as???????? (*.jpg, *.tif ???). Whatever, in order to post it here, it will not look the same.

jthomas

Humungus wrote:

In what way ric ? More funtions ? I have only used RawShooter and find it great but am always open to look further.

Apparently there is a difference in the quality of RAW file conversions by different programs. Look here. Thom Hogan thinks Capture One is the best, with Nikon Capture a close second.

wxwax

jthomas wrote:

Of course it will not be a RAW image. Save it as???????? (*.jpg, *.tif ???). Whatever, in order to post it here, it will not look the same.

The screen grab will take an image of what's on your screen. Try it.

jthomas

wxwax wrote:

The screen grab will take an image of what's on your screen. Try it.

I know that and I have done it . And it doesn't provide the information I need to make my point. I'll do it and show you why later today, but I have some actual work to do now.

Ric Grupe

You can't!

jthomas wrote:

Whatever, but it still looks much sharper than the converted jpeg. When I look at the image in the RS preview window, it looks perfect. It needs no sharpening, color correction, or anything. How can I preserve that?

Bummer!

I use BreezeBrowser for image management. My photos look great displayed in the program, but, not as good when saved or exported. I wrote Chris Breeeze about this (turns out I wasn't the first), and he said that the effect would only work for viewing. He calls it High Quality setting.

jthomas

wxwax wrote:

The screen grab will take an image of what's on your screen. Try it.

O.K. here it is:



...and it looks no better than the saved jpeg, as I expected, because it is a jpeg!

I know that the histogram shows blown highlights, but that is the sky in the background which I'm not interested in.

Ric Grupe

C1 does a better job...

Humungus wrote:

In what way ric ? More funtions ? I have only used RawShooter and find it great but am always open to look further.

...of editing, IMO.

The white balance tools are amazing...with the ability to shift the hue.

C1 seems to have more of a gradual range in there adjustment controls, making fine tuning easier. Heck, visit Phase One's website and try it for yourself...you'll see!


Rawshooter is still being developed...so...who knows.?

wxwax

JT, sounds like you're frustrated, so I won't pursue this any more.

digismile

JT,

I think the some of the issues you are having stem from colour management. This is still any area that I am learning and have struggled with for a long while.

When I finally got a dSLR, I had read about all the benefits of RAW and immediately changed over. Yes, it gave me lots of control, but my shots on the web just didn't have the same look as in PS. I tended to have to over saturate, etc. just to get it to look the same as what I saw in Photoshop.

Because several gurus such as Scott Kelby said to use AdobeRGB, that's what I used (and still do today as my setting in my 20D and in Photoshop). What I didn't know was saving my jpegs in this colorspace caused them to be very flat when I opened them with a browser or uploaded them to the web. The answer in this case is to convert the profile to sRGB before saving.

In the case of your picture, it shows up as an untagged RGB (no profile at all). I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty to convert this file as well as one more of your photos from Egypt to show you the difference it makes doing NOTHING but saving it with an sRGB profile (I've wanted to see this place all my life!).

The important thing to note is that in Photoshop, you see ABSOLUTELY NO CHANGE when you convert the profile. It's when you see this same photo in another application (such as a browser) that you see a difference.

Here is your daffodils as I saved it directly from the screen:



Here is the same photo saved with sRGB:



Notice the difference in intensity of the flowers.

Here is something more noticable:

Your sphinx photo,


And your sphinx photo saved with an sRGB profile:



I am also using RawShooter and I am very happy with it. Although C1 Pro is still considered the "best" by the pros, you have to think that since RS is being developed br one of the original developers of C1, they probably know a bit about what they are doing!

In RS, you can pick the sRGB colorspace in the advanced Batch Convert tab. As far as the sharpness is concerned, I think the issue is that RS "optimizes" the preview image at every size level. I noticed very early on when using this program that when you "zoom" from fit to screen to 100%, the initial image is all blurry and you see the little "wait I'm busy" gears twirling as it repurposes the preview image for that scale.

The screen shot that you captured was at something like 33%. How does the sharpening look like at 100%? Your sharpening should be done last, at the final image size.

And finally, one of the most important things I found about sharpness and its final appearance is that I now always save my files at exactly the size I expect they will be displayed if I want to get the absolute best image. I used to edit all my hi-res photos for printing and upload them to smugmug full size. The images that you see are also repurposed from their original size (large images are 800 x 600).

I had noticed that my entries into the photo challenges didn't always look as good as I had thought. So now if I want to print a photo, I optimize its sharpness and size, etc. for the size of the print. If I want to optimize for the web, I save it as a much smaller size.

I hope you keep trying to work with RAW files! I know that it sometimes seems like a royal pain in the butt, but I think in the end, RAW can be well worth the effort:D .

Enjoy (less frustrating) RAW Photography,
Brad

jthomas

digismile wrote:

JT,

I think the some of the issues you are having stem from colour management. This is still any area that I am learning and have struggled with for a long while.

Enjoy (less frustrating) RAW Photography,
Brad

Wow! Many thanks, digismile! I'll certainly give this a try, and I do appreciate your taking time to write all this up. I'm sure there are some others out there in DGRIN land who will benefit from it too:):.

Ric Grupe

Very interesting...
...thanks for the information. Good catch...I wasn't thinking along the lines of color management. Something I resolved along time ago and just take for granted.

wxwax

digismile wrote:

Because several gurus such as Scott Kelby said to use AdobeRGB, that's what I used (and still do today as my setting in my 20D and in Photoshop). What I didn't know was saving my jpegs in this colorspace caused them to be very flat when I opened them with a browser or uploaded them to the web. The answer in this case is to convert the profile to sRGB before saving.

Brad

Great stuff with excellent examples, Brad.

jthomas

digismile wrote:

JT,

In the case of your picture, it shows up as an untagged RGB (no profile at all).
Brad

Now I'm confused. When I brought up the same photo again in RS and clicked on the "Batch Convert" tab, I see:



under "RGB Working Space" it say "sRGB IEC...". I'm sure I have not changed that - I think that is the default I have been using...

Also, when I open any of my old pictures, like the one of the Sphinx, above (taken with a Coolpix 4300 by the way) and click on Image > Mode > Assign Profile, it says the working profile is the same sRGB IEC...

Am I missing something ?

digismile

jthomas wrote:

Now I'm confused. When I brought up the same photo again in RS and clicked on the "Batch Convert" tab, I see:



under "RGB Working Space" it say "sRGB IEC...". I'm sure I have not changed that - I think that is the default I have been using...

Also, when I open any of my old pictures, like the one of the Sphinx, above (taken with a Coolpix 4300 by the way) and click on Image > Mode > Assign Profile, it says the working profile is the same sRGB IEC...

Am I missing something ?

HHmm. I did check a couple of your original size photos and they are SRGB.

I checked the pixmatic website and I did see some info on colour. Which version of RSE are you running? 1.1, 1.1.1, or 1.1.2? I am running 1.1.

One of the bug fixes in 1.1.2 is supposed to be for Nikon & Minolta colour rendering. But before you go and upgrade to 1.1.2 (if you're at an earlier version), check out some of the posts on the community website. Some of the people are saying it's changing their reds on NEF files. It seems fine on my Canon CR2 files.

I still believe that the difference between what you see and what you eventually get is because of some type of colour management along the way. I guess it's still possible that RSE is to blame. However, you really should check out Rutt's thread on out of gamut colors here. Maybe RSE is displaying colours out of gamut.

I did notice that you are uploading your full size images. Good for people to print large enlargements, but not really optimized for general display. Why don't you try resizing one of your photos to 800 by xxx, sharpen it at 100%, save it and upload it and see if you are happier with the sharpness.

Very perplexing JT!!

Part of what is great about this site, is that we keep on trying, and we all learn together:D .

Regards,
Brad

gus

Brad...that drop down menu in RS with apppearance on it. What do those 5 or 6 options do ?

Are they just adding contrasts & sharpening for those that dont wish to do it them selves.

Ta
Gus

jthomas

digismile wrote:

I checked the pixmatic website and I did see some info on colour. Which version of RSE are you running? 1.1, 1.1.1, or 1.1.2? I am running 1.1.


I still believe that the difference between what you see and what you eventually get is because of some type of colour management along the way. I guess it's still possible that RSE is to blame. However, you really should check out Rutt's thread on out of gamut colors here. Maybe RSE is displaying colours out of gamut.

I did notice that you are uploading your full size images. Good for people to print large enlargements, but not really optimized for general display. Why don't you try resizing one of your photos to 800 by xxx, sharpen it at 100%, save it and upload it and see if you are happier with the sharpness.

Very perplexing JT!!

Part of what is great about this site, is that we keep on trying, and we all learn together:D .

Regards,
Brad

I have RS version 1.1.1. I appreciate your suggestion about not uploading the full-size image. It will save some upload time too.

HOWEVER, it will require me to modify each image individually. I posted all my previous galleries just so friends and family could see them, and I just uploaded whatever came out of the camera (selected images, of course).

All-in-all, this has been an interesting an informative discussion. I intend to test some other RAW converters, but not immediately. If I discover anything useful, I'll post it. My wife and I are going to NYC tomorrow for a few days, so I'll be out of the loop this week.

digismile

jthomas wrote:

I have RS version 1.1.1. I appreciate your suggestion about not uploading the full-size image. It will save some upload time too.

HOWEVER, it will require me to modify each image individually.

Probably the one thing RSE is missing. For batch resizing I use Dr. Brown's Image Processor found here. Only works with Photoshop CS though, but a cool little (FREE) plug-in. Can be used to go directly from RAW to jpeg, tiff or just resizing jpeg.

Photoshop CS2 sounds like it will have many of the batch conversion features of RSE, so that's what I'm waiting on ...

Have a safe trip to NYC.

digismile

Humungus wrote:

Brad...that drop down menu in RS with apppearance on it. What do those 5 or 6 options do ?

Are they just adding contrasts & sharpening for those that dont wish to do it them selves.

Ta
Gus

Hi Gus,

Actually, it appears to be a combination of several parameters that you see on the Correct Tab. It seems to adjust Fill Light, Shadow Contrast, and Highlights, and overall exposure all in one click (of course they can still be adjusted using the sliders). In Photoshop Camera Raw, you have the equivalent of the Shadow, Brightness and Contrast as separate sliders. The Fill Light option is like the new Shadow/Highlight feature in CS.

So this drop down gives you basically 7 options, flat (do nothing), Indoor (normal, medium, strong) and Outdoor (normal, medium, strong). It does a nice job of bringing out dark shadows. It sometimes overdoes the exposure, but you can still use all the sliders to continue to tweek the photo. I like it because you can simply hover your mouse over each of the options and you automatically see what it will do. A fast way to judge your changes without having to individually slide the option bars.

Brad

gus

digismile wrote:

Hi Gus,

Actually, it appears to be a combination of several parameters that you see on the Correct Tab. It seems to adjust Fill Light, Shadow Contrast, and Highlights, and overall exposure all in one click (of course they can still be adjusted using the sliders). In Photoshop Camera Raw, you have the equivalent of the Shadow, Brightness and Contrast as separate sliders. The Fill Light option is like the new Shadow/Highlight feature in CS.

So this drop down gives you basically 7 options, flat (do nothing), Indoor (normal, medium, strong) and Outdoor (normal, medium, strong). It does a nice job of bringing out dark shadows. It sometimes overdoes the exposure, but you can still use all the sliders to continue to tweek the photo. I like it because you can simply hover your mouse over each of the options and you automatically see what it will do. A fast way to judge your changes without having to individually slide the option bars.

Brad

Tks brad

mslammers

Screenshot

jthomas wrote:

And then what do I do? To post it here, I still have to convert to jpeg, which is just as bad or worse than letting RS do it! My whole question concerns losses incurred in converting from RAW to jpeg.

In Windows you can push the printscreen button and then paste in Paint, save out of paint after cropping to jpeg file then upload.