Mount Rainier C&C

[Eclectix]

In the film days your resolution was more a function of the film you bought than the camera; the sensor on your digital camera essentially replaces the film. Cheap film meant grainy pictures with colors that weren't "true." Your digital camera's sensors are usually measured by their megapixel count (resolution) although size is also an important factor. I don't know much about your camera but in general most point-and-shoot cameras will not have as large of a sensor or as high of a megapixel count as most DSLR cameras. But it looks like the specs on your camera are about 12 megapixels, which should be enough for this sort of thing, although I don't know how large the sensor is and that might be a factor.

When the camera takes a picture, the data from the sensor is stored as a file. A RAW file stores all of the data exactly as it was collected from the sensor. If the camera only saves the file as a jpeg, it compresses this data into an image file for you. It makes adjustments to the data it collects based on the light balance, picture style, and so forth according to the input it receives. Then it compresses this data into a jpeg.

A bad analogy would be like recording a symphony with several microphones, then condensing it into a file with only a single channel of sound.

The sensor is capable of picking up a greater range of light than it can record on a jpeg file, and all that information is lost when it compresses the image. Also, jpeg images are mathematically calculated (I don't know the details of how this works) to reduce the amount of data needed to record the image. This information is compressed based on the way human eyes see things, so it works fine until we need to make adjustments to the file. Then those little shortcuts become much more visible to our eyes- usually this shows up as pixelated noise in the image.

Also, many cameras allow you to set the size/quality of the jpeg image that it will store. If your camera is set to record low or medium files, then this could be part of your problem. Check the settings and make sure that you have it set to record the largest possible file size. You won't be able to store as many files to a memory card, but you will be able to see the difference in image quality.

To fix the balance in the second image, I just made a duplicate layer of the image, dragged the duplicate layer over to the right a bit (so that the bottom layer underneath showed on the left side), and then used the healing tool to hide the edge of the top layer and make it blend into the bottom layer.

 

[echoyjeff2221]

Yeah, I have it set on normal quality, not 'fine.' So do RAW photos have no very little noise, or do they have any noise at all? It seems like there wouldn't be any noise coming from compression, but are there other factors as well?

Were you suggesting that I try artificially balancing it like that? I think that might be overstepping my own boundaries for the amount of PP I want to do, but I'll give it a go to see how it looks. EDIT: Okay, I tried it and failed. The healing tool is just making everything look smudgy.

So you really do like the darkness? Hum. Okay, then! I sort of lightened it up as well ... originally it looked kind of sludgy, which I think is just from the underexposure.

 

[Eclectix]

If you want to avoid the noise, then you should definitely set it on "fine." Normal may be okay for snapshots, but not for quality artistic photographs. This is possibly your biggest problem right here.

RAW certainly does have noise just like any other digital format, especially at higher ISO levels, but not from compression. And just as importantly, they can be manipulated by increasing or decreasing exposure to a much greater extent before noise becomes an issue. Eventually you will have to convert it to some other format such as jpeg of GIF or TIFF for viewing, and at this time some compression may be used, but if you do the editing in RAW first, then the image that is compressed will be the one you want to see, and not the one the camera thinks you want to see.

I wasn't really suggesting that you necessarily should edit the image; I was just demonstrating how you could improve your composition for future reference. Everybody has their own idea about how much image editing is too much.