What Causes Pixelated Clouds?? Pic Included.

ANDS! · Jan 21, 2009

Enem178 said:
""only export to JPEG using low compression settings.""

Forgive me but what does this actually mean? Does this have something to do with me downloading the pics to my laptop?? Sorry and thanks for your help.

He means when you do the RAW conversion, set it to high or whatever. I don't know what camera you have, but at least on the Nikon's, it will save it at maximum awesomeness values, so compression isn't an issue.

Have you ever actually shot in RAW and developed a workflow for dealing with RAW files?

Enem178 · Jan 21, 2009

Yes, i've shot in raw before and I use either the supplied canon software or PS elements 6 to view and edit it. I dont believe I've ever did any type of conversion from jpeg to RAW or vice versa. I dont even believe I know how. I just download, view, edit, and save the file. In photoshop before it saves the edited file, it does ask "what quality I want to use" its a 1-10 value, 10 being the highest quality and that's what I usually select.

ANDS! · Jan 21, 2009

Enem178 said:
Yes, i've shot in raw before and I use either the supplied canon software or PS elements 6 to view and edit it. I dont believe I've ever did any type of conversion from jpeg to RAW or vice versa. I dont even believe I know how. I just download, view, edit, and save the file. In photoshop before it saves the edited file, it does ask "what quality I want to use" its a 1-10 value, 10 being the highest quality and that's what I usually select.

No you haven't. The computer does it for you. It's not something that you can alter the settings on. The computer software takes the RAW information and assembles it. Period. Now you can make exposure tweaks, but you can't actually interrupt the RAW conversion with your own special sauce. That would be silly.

As far as PHOTOSHOP is concerned, at that point you have ALREADY made the RAW conversion into a JPEG. Now what it is saying is "How would you like us to SAVE the JPEG." Two seperate processes.

epp_b · Jan 21, 2009

Forgive me but what does this actually mean? Does this have something to do with me downloading the pics to my laptop?? Sorry and thanks for your help.

If you shoot in RAW and export to JPEG after processing them in whatever software you use (Capture NX, Photoshop, whatever) use whatever compression settings give you "high quality".

Enem178 · Jan 21, 2009

O so once a raw image is viewed in photo shop or any other pp software it is automatically converted to a jpeg file? Wow, learned something new!! Cool, you guys cleared that up for me. Thanks!!

ANDS! · Jan 21, 2009

A RAW file is just data. It's not an image format so to speak. Even when you are viewing a RAW file on your camera, you are viewing a RAW file converted to a JPEG by the cameras CPU.

Michael P. Harker · Jan 22, 2009

From what I can ascertain in your image, the clouds don't appear pixilated at all, but rather you have a diffusion of detail because of atmospheric conditions. Overall, the image is sharp and has fair resolution, especially in the foreground. If you look closely, you will see that the buildings at the far horizon are almost obscured.

This is a normal photographic experience on cloudy, dusty, or humid days, even when shooting with film. One way you can improve this type of image is to have a good UV filter on the front of the lens - it absorbs the ultraviolet light (which scatters through these atmospheric particulates and gives you that hazy appearance), thus improving overall clarity. If you shot the same scene in black and white, an orange filter would come very close to completely eradicating the visual obscurity caused by the compression of the "air space materials" that are suspended in the air.

Once you get your image on your computer (and if you have Photoshop software), you can selectively increase the contrast and color saturation of everything from the horizon to the top of your composition. That will improve things, also.

Michael