Veiwers, ive noticed something

[puyjapin]

ok, maybe i am being dumb. I started saving files as tiff yesterday and posted on here, big mike said that a jpeg and tiff should look the same on screen. But it seemed that my tiffs were sharper, a lot sharper. Then I noticed i was opening tiffs in nero viewer and jpegs in the picassa viewer. BUT....when i open jpegs in nero the sharpness is virtually the same. Why is this and what Viewers do most of you use?:blushing:

 

[Overread]

hmm I don't use either viewer myself but I do use windows picture viewer and its a pain as it will load the shot and then take several moments before it gets it sharp (it seems to load a blurry version first) but given some time it shows me a sharper version (I won't say sharp as - well - sometimes I miss )

 

[Slaphead]

I think this comes down to what algorithms the different viewing programs use to downsample the image for viewing.

If you zoom to 100% then they "should" in theory look the same.

I use GIMP, PSE, Apples Aperture and Apples Preview to view images and they all appear to render the image differently until you zoom in to 100%.

 

[puyjapin]

yes seems like nero is pretty sharp and also the viewer in pse is good too ive found

 

[mrodgers]

I think this comes down to what algorithms the different viewing programs use to downsample the image for viewing.

That would be my guess as well. Even in Photoshop, if you slowly zoom out, you will see the image get better then worse then better then worse as you are at different zoom levels.

 

[tsaraleksi]

I use Photo Mechanic for viewing/browsing images-- it's much easier to have a dedicated piece of software for viewing so you don't have to rely upon the rather variable nature of general preview programs.

 

[rufus5150]

That would be my guess as well. Even in Photoshop, if you slowly zoom out, you will see the image get better then worse then better then worse as you are at different zoom levels.

In photoshop CS3 and below, if it wasn't at 25%, 50% or 100%, the algorithm it would use for displaying the image was utter crap. I don't know first hand but I've heard that CS4 farms the rendering out to the video card and thus this problem has been mostly eliminated.

This is one place where GIMP for a very long time had a leg up on Photoshop.

 

[Sherman Banks]

I view them in Photoshop Bridge and they look identical, same with Windows picture viewer.

 

[Samanax]

If I'm just checking out my JPEGs I use IrfanView.

If I'm checking out my RAW files, I use Canon's ZoomBrowser EX.

 

[TheSon]

Tiff is a more lossless file type. When converting a RAW file to TIFF it retains a lot more information and therefore is a much bigger file and a lot sharper with a wider color spectrum. Jpeg is a way to simplify the picture and have a low file size for uploading on the web.

Are the file sizes of the TIFF and JPEG the same? When I saved my RAW files as 16 bit TIFF they were like 20-30mb as opposed to a 5mb JPEG.

 

[AlexColeman]

Maybe you are saving a a strong jpeg compression?

 

[EhJsNe]

I never thought that viewing pictures in different programs could look different.

My friend got Photoshop Elements 7 with something she bought and let me put it on my computor (I think it was a sscanner or printer or something) and now its the main program I use. The only thing I do in Picasa now, is crop it and straighten. (I dont like the cropping tool in PSE7 and I dont get how to use the straighten tool)

After I finish editing, I zoom in to 100% and fine tune everything. (Still dont understand a lot of everything...) Mainly the sharpening....

 

[itznfb]

hmm I don't use either viewer myself but I do use windows picture viewer and its a pain as it will load the shot and then take several moments before it gets it sharp (it seems to load a blurry version first) but given some time it shows me a sharper version (I won't say sharp as - well - sometimes I miss )

lol, i picture myself sitting there waiting for it to get sharper... then saying, wait a minute, it can't be done! lol