Maintaining photo quality from camera to computer

[Ivan326]

This is a problem I have been struggling with for a while but haven't yet sought help with it. So I'll be out shooting for hours and the whole time I'm thinking "this is great I'm getting some killer shots!" But then my ego is deflated when I go to upload them and they just don't look good. When I play them back on my camera they look great. I came to the decision that they just looked good on the small screen and enlarged not so much. Perhaps the quality of my equipment just doesn't produce quality photos. But after a closer look I have discovered that indeed the quality of the pictures on my camera as I play them back are better than that of the uploaded photos. Once I upload them they loose sharpness, contrast, and color. This one has really got me because I know I'm a skilled photographer but I'm not thechy and I'm starting to get discouraged at the results of my shoots. I'm looking for advice from skilled photographers and I'm more than willing to do some troubleshooting, I just need to know where to start. Is there a solution to this issue or is it something that I gotta put up with and get really good at editing? I've tried shooting jpg and raw and get the same results.

 

[Josh66]

The small screen does make everything look better, and there is some in-camera processing going on that you may not be seeing on the computer after upload. Post an example. Also, what software are you editing with?

 

[AlanKlein80 19]

I think the contrast and saturation appears greater in the smaller shot and the eye/brain likes that effect.

 

[bratkinson]

The small screen shows edited JPGs and, at their size, completely conceals missed focus, some over/under exposure, blown out skies, etc. I've been fooled many times by relying simply on the small screen to decide if I have a good shot or not.

One of the 'big steps' I made in digital photography was to start using the histogram of the photo on the screen. On my camera, I can display a somewhat smaller image of the picture along with the histogram which helps me to determine am I underexposed or overexposed. I could set it to show color histograms if I wanted, but I'm satisfied with exposure info only. But don't get lulled into relying solely on the histogram, either. Sometimes I WANT slight underexposure or, it's telling me I'm under exposed and the picture is what I want. The difference of 'opinion' (mine vs camera) is typically some unusual lighting with overly bright areas on one side or the other, but what I want is what's in the darker areas.

Next, I have to ask...are you looking at the RAW images on your computer or the JPGs straight out of the camera? If RAW, they will unconditionally need editing to 'look right'. The JPGs viewed on the little screen reflect the results of the camera manufacturers' 'best guess' at how to make the picture look great from the RAW data. That includes everything from white balance, saturation, exposure correction, sharpening, and even lens correction in some cameras. Post processing software is always required when processing RAW images, as the colors are always a bit pale, white balance isn't set, etc. I am always amazed at the way pictures instantly come to life simply by setting the proper WB in Lightroom when working with RAW images.

Another reason that your images don't look so great on the computer screen is that your screen is probably not 'calibrated'...eg, showing the colors correctly. Laptop computers are notoriously bad in terms of displaying colors correctly as the manufacturers have had to make a lot of concessions to conserve battery power and even when the screen is viewed just a little 'off center', the colors will shift.

I shot 35mm slides for 25-30 years before moving to digital. As I started with a simple point and shoot camera that I could use full manual settings on, I soon realized that there's a whole world of post processing to be learned to get the best results from a digital camera.

 

[Ivan326]

The small screen shows edited JPGs and, at their size, completely conceals missed focus, some over/under exposure, blown out skies, etc. I've been fooled many times by relying simply on the small screen to decide if I have a good shot or not.

One of the 'big steps' I made in digital photography was to start using the histogram of the photo on the screen. On my camera, I can display a somewhat smaller image of the picture along with the histogram which helps me to determine am I underexposed or overexposed. I could set it to show color histograms if I wanted, but I'm satisfied with exposure info only. But don't get lulled into relying solely on the histogram, either. Sometimes I WANT slight underexposure or, it's telling me I'm under exposed and the picture is what I want. The difference of 'opinion' (mine vs camera) is typically some unusual lighting with overly bright areas on one side or the other, but what I want is what's in the darker areas.

Next, I have to ask...are you looking at the RAW images on your computer or the JPGs straight out of the camera? If RAW, they will unconditionally need editing to 'look right'. The JPGs viewed on the little screen reflect the results of the camera manufacturers' 'best guess' at how to make the picture look great from the RAW data. That includes everything from white balance, saturation, exposure correction, sharpening, and even lens correction in some cameras. Post processing software is always required when processing RAW images, as the colors are always a bit pale, white balance isn't set, etc. I am always amazed at the way pictures instantly come to life simply by setting the proper WB in Lightroom when working with RAW images.

Another reason that your images don't look so great on the computer screen is that your screen is probably not 'calibrated'...eg, showing the colors correctly. Laptop computers are notoriously bad in terms of displaying colors correctly as the manufacturers have had to make a lot of concessions to conserve battery power and even when the screen is viewed just a little 'off center', the colors will shift.

I shot 35mm slides for 25-30 years before moving to digital. As I started with a simple point and shoot camera that I could use full manual settings on, I soon realized that there's a whole world of post processing to be learned to get the best results from a digital camera.

Thankyou so much. I too usually shoot a little on the dark side of exposure especially lately and that helps a bit with this issue. You can always lighten darks but you cant darken whites. I have been viewing my pics on jpg, but that is just on the default photo viewer on my computer. I am yet to get a good editing program. My buddy said he has photoshop digital darkroom so I am going to try that. I will also try to calibrate my screen too. I know I will get out of this rut as my skills progress, I just needed some ideas to work with so thanks.

 

[ph0enix]

The small screen shows edited JPGs and, at their size, completely conceals missed focus, some over/under exposure, blown out skies, etc. I've been fooled many times by relying simply on the small screen to decide if I have a good shot or not.

One of the 'big steps' I made in digital photography was to start using the histogram of the photo on the screen. On my camera, I can display a somewhat smaller image of the picture along with the histogram which helps me to determine am I underexposed or overexposed. I could set it to show color histograms if I wanted, but I'm satisfied with exposure info only. But don't get lulled into relying solely on the histogram, either. Sometimes I WANT slight underexposure or, it's telling me I'm under exposed and the picture is what I want. The difference of 'opinion' (mine vs camera) is typically some unusual lighting with overly bright areas on one side or the other, but what I want is what's in the darker areas.

Next, I have to ask...are you looking at the RAW images on your computer or the JPGs straight out of the camera? If RAW, they will unconditionally need editing to 'look right'. The JPGs viewed on the little screen reflect the results of the camera manufacturers' 'best guess' at how to make the picture look great from the RAW data. That includes everything from white balance, saturation, exposure correction, sharpening, and even lens correction in some cameras. Post processing software is always required when processing RAW images, as the colors are always a bit pale, white balance isn't set, etc. I am always amazed at the way pictures instantly come to life simply by setting the proper WB in Lightroom when working with RAW images.

Another reason that your images don't look so great on the computer screen is that your screen is probably not 'calibrated'...eg, showing the colors correctly. Laptop computers are notoriously bad in terms of displaying colors correctly as the manufacturers have had to make a lot of concessions to conserve battery power and even when the screen is viewed just a little 'off center', the colors will shift.

I shot 35mm slides for 25-30 years before moving to digital. As I started with a simple point and shoot camera that I could use full manual settings on, I soon realized that there's a whole world of post processing to be learned to get the best results from a digital camera.

You can always lighten darks but you cant darken whites.

That's not entirely true. If a specific part of an image is completely blown (overexposed to the point where only pure white is recorded), you won't be able to recover any data from it but slight over exposure is recommended when shooting RAW. There is a technique called Exposing to the right (ETTR - more info here: Exposing to the right - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) where you purposely overexpose while shooting. You can always bring the exposure down in post-processing as long as the image is not overcooked.

 

[D-B-J]

The small screen shows edited JPGs and, at their size, completely conceals missed focus, some over/under exposure, blown out skies, etc. I've been fooled many times by relying simply on the small screen to decide if I have a good shot or not.

One of the 'big steps' I made in digital photography was to start using the histogram of the photo on the screen. On my camera, I can display a somewhat smaller image of the picture along with the histogram which helps me to determine am I underexposed or overexposed. I could set it to show color histograms if I wanted, but I'm satisfied with exposure info only. But don't get lulled into relying solely on the histogram, either. Sometimes I WANT slight underexposure or, it's telling me I'm under exposed and the picture is what I want. The difference of 'opinion' (mine vs camera) is typically some unusual lighting with overly bright areas on one side or the other, but what I want is what's in the darker areas.

Next, I have to ask...are you looking at the RAW images on your computer or the JPGs straight out of the camera? If RAW, they will unconditionally need editing to 'look right'. The JPGs viewed on the little screen reflect the results of the camera manufacturers' 'best guess' at how to make the picture look great from the RAW data. That includes everything from white balance, saturation, exposure correction, sharpening, and even lens correction in some cameras. Post processing software is always required when processing RAW images, as the colors are always a bit pale, white balance isn't set, etc. I am always amazed at the way pictures instantly come to life simply by setting the proper WB in Lightroom when working with RAW images.

Another reason that your images don't look so great on the computer screen is that your screen is probably not 'calibrated'...eg, showing the colors correctly. Laptop computers are notoriously bad in terms of displaying colors correctly as the manufacturers have had to make a lot of concessions to conserve battery power and even when the screen is viewed just a little 'off center', the colors will shift.

I shot 35mm slides for 25-30 years before moving to digital. As I started with a simple point and shoot camera that I could use full manual settings on, I soon realized that there's a whole world of post processing to be learned to get the best results from a digital camera.

Thankyou so much. I too usually shoot a little on the dark side of exposure especially lately and that helps a bit with this issue. You can always lighten darks but you cant darken whites. I have been viewing my pics on jpg, but that is just on the default photo viewer on my computer. I am yet to get a good editing program. My buddy said he has photoshop digital darkroom so I am going to try that. I will also try to calibrate my screen too. I know I will get out of this rut as my skills progress, I just needed some ideas to work with so thanks.

The LCD is good for composition, but not exposure or sharpness. I use the histogram and the "blinkies" (they shown when highlights are clipped) to ensure proper exposure, rather than trust the LCD. Also, as others have said, there is usually some jpeg processing in camera that may make the photo's look better in-camera.

Best,
Jake