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 Standard Test Scene |
The F717 has two JPEG compression levels which can be combined with a variety of image resolutions and JPEG FINE, JPEG STANDARD or TIFF image quality.
To give an impression of what some of the combinations of image size and quality produce the table below is a cross reference of some of them:
Images below are cropped 240 x 100 area of the image magnified
200% (nearest neighbour).
| 2560 x 1920 | |
| TIFF |  14,403 KB (Not available for download) |
| JPEG FINE |
 2,196 KB |
| JPEG STD |
 1,211 KB |
| 2048 x 1536 | |
| JPEG FINE |
 1,457 KB |
| 1280 x 960 | |
| JPEG FINE |
 584 KB |
| 640 x 480 | |
| JPEG FINE |
 144 KB |
Interesting to note that the TIFF image appears to be very slightly softer, or 'less processed'. Other than that there's little reason to use TIFF (unless you like the idea of using 14 MB a shot), JPEG Fine provides all the detail with little in the way of artifacts (JPEG at least - sharpening halos are clearly visible). JPEG Standard seemed to work quite well, very few artifacts and a good saving in storage space.
Another generation on and Sony still haven't caught up with the majority of other prosumer level digital cameras in respect to giving the photographer full control over the final 'look' of the image. There's still no ability to control colour saturation (often too strong for most) and no contrast (tone) parameter. Never mind some of the more advanced features available in similar specified (and more importantly priced) cameras like the DiMAGE 7Hi - selectable colour space, image filters, user memories or a RAW capture mode. Lets hope Sony R&D are listening and will give some control to the photographer in the next iteration of prosumer digital cameras.
The only parameter you do have control of is sharpening. The DSC-F717 provides five levels of sharpening from +2 (hard) to -2 (soft). The slight halo sharpening artifacts visible at the normal sharpening level (0) can be reduced by using a sharpness level of -1 (although obviously at the expense of detail sharpness).
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| Sharpness: +2 (Hard) |
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| Sharpness: +1 |
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| Sharpness: 0 (Normal) |
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| Sharpness: -1 |
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| Sharpness: -2 (Soft) |
