Post proceessing question

[Alpha]

Do you not realize that all these things are relative?

If you're satisfied with your print, whatever it is, then yes, that is a subjectively great thing.

But objectively speaking, some printers are much better than others. And the better printers use TIFF as their standard with good reason. There isn't much else to say.

 

[ANDS!]

A someone said, its all relative, and everything MUST be placed in its context. Is one format better than another - well all of this stuff really is just math, so of course one has to have a better algorithim for interpreting, color, tonal range, etc. However, and this is a HUGE however, for the great majority, does the difference matter. The question isn't - "Does format X have more information than format Y". The question is "Is format X able to render quality photos". The answer is yes. Its the same question as "will a 35MPG car save me more money than a 33MPG". Sure. But the PERCEIVED difference will be negligible. I understand "industry" types, who have to have the best (its a marketting tool - "We here at Corporation Z only use the finest. . .blah blah blah" - you don't want to deal with a company that doesn't use the BEST do you?) regardless of the ability of the AVERAGE individual to tel the difference; but for the great majority - JPEG MORE than qualifies as an accepted default format. To suggest, even off-hand, that a person CANT get quality prints. . .I dunno.

 

[Alpha]

A someone said, its all relative, and everything MUST be placed in its context. Is one format better than another - well all of this stuff really is just math, so of course one has to have a better algorithim for interpreting, color, tonal range, etc. However, and this is a HUGE however, for the great majority, does the difference matter. The question isn't - "Does format X have more information than format Y". The question is "Is format X able to render quality photos". The answer is yes. Its the same question as "will a 35MPG car save me more money than a 33MPG". Sure. But the PERCEIVED difference will be negligible. I understand "industry" types, who have to have the best (its a marketting tool - "We here at Corporation Z only use the finest. . .blah blah blah" - you don't want to deal with a company that doesn't use the BEST do you?) regardless of the ability of the AVERAGE individual to tel the difference; but for the great majority - JPEG MORE than qualifies as an accepted default format. To suggest, even off-hand, that a person CANT get quality prints. . .I dunno.

I understand your point. But jpg doesn't "[qualify] as an accepted default format" for really good printers. You don't have to take my word for it. Call Durst or Oce and ask them yourself. But don't write me off as some techno-whore because I've seen the difference with my own eyes (and my own prints) and I happen to agree with their marketing departments that they'll make better prints than a Noritsu or a consumer inkjet.

I never said you can't get a good print from a jpg. I said you could get a better one from a TIFF on a great printer.

 

[wvav8tor]

Ok, I aways save the raw file and will pass a copy of that along as well as the processed file that I do. I process the file by what appeals to me and how it appears on the monitor. However someone else may want a different look and this will give them a chance to play as well.

Now I am still not sure after all this discussion as to the best format to save to. I clearly understand that a Tiff file is not compressed as much as a jpg and it would seem logical that it would deliver a better print but we seem to be split on opinion as to the final result as it relates to the printed product. Any other thoughts?...and thanks a bunch for everyone's input.

dusty

 

[Alpha]

It depends on who's doing the printing and with what equipment. If you want a high resolution image with no compression that you could use for prints from high quality professional printers, then Tiff is the way to go. If you're only printing on a small inkjet or something at home then jpg. But there's no harm in keeping the high res tiff around and simply saving a copy as a jpg for small-scale printing. Then you always have the good copies around in case you want a bigger or better print. This is the printing equivalent of shooting RAW + jpg

 

[Mav]

If you're satisfied with your print, whatever it is, then yes, that is a subjectively great thing.

But objectively speaking, some printers are much better than others. And the better printers use TIFF as their standard with good reason. There isn't much else to say.

If you're shooting medium and large format film like you do and are going to be making mural sized fine art prints NOT on the Noritsu at the local Costco that you'd like to be able to put your nose into and still see fine detail then by all means use TIFF. It'd be crazy not to. Little DSLRs with their crappy Bayer interpolated sensors are not even remotely in the same league and have a lot more things limiting them than TIFF vs JPEG for printing, which is why I think this is all silly for DSLRs and completely out of context.

Now I am still not sure after all this discussion as to the best format to save to. I clearly understand that a Tiff file is not compressed as much as a jpg and it would seem logical that it would deliver a better print but we seem to be split on opinion as to the final result as it relates to the printed product. Any other thoughts?...and thanks a bunch for everyone's input.

Take a sample image and get test prints done on whatever printer you're going to use from both a TIFF and a JPEG and see which one looks better, or if you can even tell? That's what I'd do. And I really don't think there's much point in passing along the RAW file to the couple. Chances are they'll have no clue what to even do with it, probably won't even be able to open it, and if they want to tweak stuff there's still plenty of leeway to tweak on the JPEGs themselves.

 

[Alpha]

If you're shooting medium and large format film like you do and are going to be making mural sized fine art prints NOT on the Noritsu at the local Costco that you'd like to be able to put your nose into and still see fine detail then by all means use TIFF. It'd be crazy not to. Little DSLRs with their crappy Bayer interpolated sensors are not even remotely in the same league and have a lot more things limiting them than TIFF vs JPEG for printing, which is why I think this is all silly for DSLRs and completely out of context.

If digital cameras have a lot more things limiting them (which I don't believe they do), then wouldn't it be of the utmost importance to not introduce another limiting step, i.e. compression?

 

[Joves]

Now I am still not sure after all this discussion as to the best format to save to. I clearly understand that a Tiff file is not compressed as much as a jpg and it would seem logical that it would deliver a better print but we seem to be split on opinion as to the final result as it relates to the printed product. Any other thoughts?...and thanks a bunch for everyone's input.

dusty

If your brother and your niece are going to have them printed, then save them to the highest resolution Jpeg. That will be adequate for where ever they may take the photos to be printed. It isnt likely they are going to make poster sized prints anyhow. You can also save your completed post work as psd to access them later to convert them to tiff, if they want them that way but, it is highly unlikely.
The whole arguement on format to use high end printers isnt relavant to your situation.If the photoprinter wants tiffs over jpeg then you can make them up for them easily from the psd file.

 

[Garbz]

This is utterly pointless. On a printer it is immaterial what format it uses internally unless the printer itself does a crap job of converting the file. This isn't the case either, not with cheap crummy printers, not with top of the range printing systems.

If I see it on the screen it can be saved that way as a TIFF. If I can open it from a JPEG it can be converted without loss. The only printer which would produce a better quality print from a TIFF file than a high quality JPEG file (disregarding any losses due to constant re-saving which I pointed out in another thread), is a printer which did not implement one of the standards correctly. If you have such a printer I think it's time for a driver / firmware update.

It's stupid to suggest that TIFF is the only standard to use. I have used several pro labs, one said PSDs were fine, one said any format on their website (JPEG PNG TIFF PSD even PDF) was fine, and the 2 others asked for JPEG files with AdobeRGB ICC profiles embedded saying this is the way to get the best out of their printer.



To the OP. If you're done editing them then save them as JPEGs. If you're are pedantic about quality save as any lossless 16bit format. Even JPEG2000 is fine in this case, but I'd also suggest TIFF or PSD.

If you're giving files to the customer save as JPEG. There's nothing worse than getting photos of someone, wanting to share them with others only to find they are 15mb TIFFs and all need to be recompressed.

 

[wvav8tor]

This is utterly pointless. On a printer it is immaterial what format it uses internally unless the printer itself does a crap job of converting the file. This isn't the case either, not with cheap crummy printers, not with top of the range printing systems.

If I see it on the screen it can be saved that way as a TIFF. If I can open it from a JPEG it can be converted without loss. The only printer which would produce a better quality print from a TIFF file than a high quality JPEG file (disregarding any losses due to constant re-saving which I pointed out in another thread), is a printer which did not implement one of the standards correctly. If you have such a printer I think it's time for a driver / firmware update.

It's stupid to suggest that TIFF is the only standard to use. I have used several pro labs, one said PSDs were fine, one said any format on their website (JPEG PNG TIFF PSD even PDF) was fine, and the 2 others asked for JPEG files with AdobeRGB ICC profiles embedded saying this is the way to get the best out of their printer.



To the OP. If you're done editing them then save them as JPEGs. If you're are pedantic about quality save as any lossless 16bit format. Even JPEG2000 is fine in this case, but I'd also suggest TIFF or PSD.

If you're giving files to the customer save as JPEG. There's nothing worse than getting photos of someone, wanting to share them with others only to find they are 15mb TIFFs and all need to be recompressed.

Well the TIFFs were 78 Meg...so I give that up in a hurry

 

[Mav]

That's another reason I was saying it was totally overkill beyond all recognition for "normal" use on DSLRs, unless you're really going all out for one or a few particular photos, in which case I'd agree.

 

[manaheim]

Back to the OP, Save all of your raw files, ALWAYS. You can also save you edited works as PSD, so if you feel the need to go back and make other edits you don't have to start from square one with the raws. For you final output to give to your brother or print, I would use quality 12 jpegs.

+1.

To everyone... including the OP...

RAW files are essentially negatives, or as close to them as you are going to get with a digital camera. This means that you have all the data that the camera saw at the time of capture, and always have the option to go back and re-interpret that data later on.

With any kind of lossy compression format (such as JPG), you are losing data when you save it, thus reducing your ability to make exacting modifications later. The data is quite literally gone. This is not completely different from making a print from a film negative and tossing the negative when you are done.

Disk space is ridiculously cheap. Never ever ever EVER throw away your RAW files. Not ever.

BTW, I understand JPEG2000 has the option to be lossless, but from what I read it also doesn't store EXIF information. That kinda sucks. Tiff is better overall, but still... don't toss the RAWs. Never toss the raws. Repeat after me. "I will never toss my RAWs."

If you're shooting medium and large format film like you do and are going to be making mural sized fine art prints NOT on the Noritsu at the local Costco that you'd like to be able to put your nose into and still see fine detail then by all means use TIFF. It'd be crazy not to. Little DSLRs with their crappy Bayer interpolated sensors are not even remotely in the same league and have a lot more things limiting them than TIFF vs JPEG for printing, which is why I think this is all silly for DSLRs and completely out of context.

Take a sample image and get test prints done on whatever printer you're going to use from both a TIFF and a JPEG and see which one looks better, or if you can even tell? That's what I'd do. And I really don't think there's much point in passing along the RAW file to the couple. Chances are they'll have no clue what to even do with it, probably won't even be able to open it, and if they want to tweak stuff there's still plenty of leeway to tweak on the JPEGs themselves.

This is kinda like the whole 128bit argument with MP3s. "I can't tell, so therefore it's fine!" Most people claim they can't hear the difference, but I have years and years of experience in music and have a very trained ear, and I have some fairly high-end equipment that rather significantly amplifies any flaws in a recording (as well as anything GOOD in a recording), so I can tell.

So be it. I listen to 160s on the "cheap side" and 192s and higher for anything I care about... you can listen to your crappy 128s, but I scream bloody murder when I hear a 128. Fine. There are people who would have me drawn and quartered for listening to 192s. There are people who would have THEM drawn and quartered for listening to MP3s at all. There are people who would have THEM drawn and quartered for listening to anything other than Vinyl.

Can they tell the difference, really? I can't say. I know for a fact I can with great accuracy tell a 128 vs. anything higher, but I can't often tell if something is above a 160, and I can never tell if it's above a 192. Doesn't mean that it isn't better, necessarily... it may actually just mean that I lack the equipment to tell the difference.

You print your JPEGs if that makes you happy... I can often tell the difference, so I'll print TIFFs, thanks. You say tomato, I say tomato.

HOWEVER...

If I was ripping a CD for someone else, I would do it at no less than 160. If I were printing an image for someone else, I would certainly use a TIFF. Why? Because I may well know what's fine for me, but I can't say for sure what's going to be fine for them... and, again, going back to the lossy vs. lossless thing, it's safer to give the printer more data to work with than less, regardless of whether the software happens to be too braindead to benefit from the extra information.

More data is better!

Oh yeah, and keep you RAWs. Did I mention that? :lmao:

 

[Mav]

Actually I can tell 128's from 160/192's too , and no I don't have any high-end equipment, and no I don't have years of experience in audio. A beautiful piece of music sounds beautiful to me whether it's on crappy 128's or 192. If I specifically listen for it I can hear the 128 crud but that's not how I listen to a musical piece. And just like I don't listen to music like you do, I don't look at photos like you do either. An awesome and well composed photo is still going to be an awesome and well composed photo whether it's print from crappy JPEGs at Costco or from a fine art printer from TIFFs. If even the slightest imperfection in a musical piece or photo print ruins your ability to enjoy the great music or the great photo, then I feel bad for you. And comparing to MP3s is a bad analogy anyways. 128 would be like medium quality JPEG rather than 10-12 for 192's in PS. The people that scream about RAW/TIFF (to me) are the ones that would skewer you for even listening to 192's.

Obviously you're zoomed way in on the little stuff, while I'm enjoying the whole piece or the whole photo. People have vastly different ways of listening to music and viewing photos from one another. Just the other day somebody posted here asking for a critique on their photos. I thought they were quite nice. Another posted and said there was too much noise in the lower half of the photo. I was like WTF, what noise?? And how the F were you even able to see that? I literally had my nose almost on my screen looking for this, and yes, I could see a little noise. But you had to ignore the whole rest of the photo to even see it! Viewed all at once from a normal distance it was invisible! Even with my nose on the screen it was still a strain to see it!

If you're obsessive compulsive, or a full-time pro and might have a client come back a year later asking for drastic changes to a photo, by all means keep ALL your RAWs always. For most normal people who also look at photos in more normal ways, and who do not print on fine art printers, this is total, utter, complete overkill. I have no idea why people insist on making things far more complicated than they ever need to be, especially to beginners and non-pros.

 

[Alpha]

If people want to print low to average quality, then that's their prerogative. But I see this in the context of more and more people- beginners, hobbyists, and pros alike- largely ignoring print quality. The finished product is arguably the most element of production. And I think we'd do ourselves a disservice to pretend otherwise.

 

[Mav]

I think you have far higher standards than most and have have lost all perspective.