P850: RAW processing with Easyshare.

Hi everyone

Ellen Black was so glad of sending me a RAW file unprocessed from his P850, in order to process it and tell about it at the P-series site ( http://perso.wanadoo.es/kodakpseries/ ).

It was quite easy to do that RAW processing. I had not problem at all, and I captured the whole process in screenshots, which I'll use to make a little page tonight explaining it (there are a total of 35 screenshots). I have things to do now, but in two-three hours I hope to upload that little page I comment.

Anyway I have upload what it can be achieved via the RAW procesing. The image Ellen sent me is a bit strange, because it's a heavy highlight and it's a little blurried from camera shake. But it's perfect to show one of the advantages (right word?) of RAW vs. JPG: the extra info on shadow areas.

Here is the unprocessed RAW image as seen by the Easyshare software:
http://perso.wanadoo.es/kodakpseries/samples/RAW/RAW_raw.jpg

And here is the final JPG image after the RAW-processing:
http://perso.wanadoo.es/kodakpseries/samples/RAW/RAW_jpg.jpg

They here are two screenshots of the Easyshare viewer (I was unable to get the unprocessed RAW image in other way...). Yes, the image isn't great, but look at the bricks in the downright corner: they keep the color info in spite of such a heavy under-exposure. Sure a JPG image would not achieve this.

I'll post the new page as soon as I can (say three hours). I think that viewing how to process a RAW image and how easy it is, will be more interesting to more people.

Hasta!

--
Please, excuse my poor english...

Esta muy bien tu inglés. El mio es peor....

Si consigo información de las cámaras, como te las hago llegar para que las coloques en tu página web?

Saludos,
Alvaro.

SPANISH (english later):

No te creas, me hago algunos cacaos mentales que hacen época.

Puedes enviar lo que encuentres de ellas a la dirección que figura en ella:



(la pongo así para evitar spam, pues una vez me hizo abandonar una cuenta de correo...), aunque supongo que a medida que aparezca más y más información la página irá perdiendo su motivación, que no era más que la de indexar las cosas sueltas que se iban viendo (demasiado tiempo leyendo cosas como para dejar que se pierdan, ¿no?). Aunque por supuesto puede dar cabida a comentarios, imágenes, etc.

De todas formas habrás visto que te he ido pillando cosas de aquí

Gracias y un saludo.

ENGLISH:

About my english, sometimes I get very confused about writing one way or another.

You can send me whatever you like at the e-mail address that appears on the web page:



(I put it that way to prevent spam, that made me leave one account time ago), but I suppose that the more info will appear on the net, the more the page will loose its primary function: to index all the info here and there (too much time reading things to lost them in time...). Of course, it can host samples, comments, etc.

Anyway you must have seen I've taken some of your comments from here

Thanks, and hasta!

--
Please, excuse my poor english...

Mato.
Sorry for my bad english... its worse than yours.

I really don't get the point. A few weeks ago I had my doubts...... bying the Canon s2 or the Sony H1????. I was leaning to the H1 because of (in my opinion) better results in automode. When I read about this new P850 I waited to see the (first) pictures of this new Kodak. Till now I'm not happy. Yesterday I allready asked (because the pictures of Ellen are about 1 and others about 2 MB) or the finest quality for the jpg's was used. Thats beacause Mike wrote that a typical jpeg-file ffrom the 850 should be 3 till 3.5 mb. That would give an indication that there was less compression than others.

Now your showing the rawfile and the result after processing but what does it says... ? Its lighter, but the PF is even more pronounced. It does'nt make me more enthousiast for the camera. These pictures doesn't do good to the 850. I. still waiting for jpg in automode and with best qualitysettings to compare with the H1. I know Mato that you are still as enthousiast as I was in the beginnning but can you tell me how you really think about it (till)now.?

@rjan

I taken them from the chez web page:

http://www.fotografovani.cz/art/nov_df_am/kodak-easyshare-P880-P850-p.html

They look like Kodak original promo material.

Saludos,
Alvaro.

I would suggest you not to take decision on bad images. I dont know how that image was generated by Ellen but just visit this gallery.
http://www.pbase.com/ellenb/inbox

Out of all 10 shot for me unacceptable are just three, (2nd and last two). Last two are unacceptable because of wrong settings were chosen in horrible overexposing sunlight. But if you see them carefully camera has handled PF amazingly well, though details are burnt out in badly exposed parts but here I wont blame camera (sorry Ellen). So this camera handles purple fringing much better. But my favorite is hanging bicycle because its low-light performance.
Now see the Kodak gallery of Ellen;

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1&Uc=qm0h2kv.cjh1001n&Uy=lr0r1t&Ux=1
Almost all shots are keeper except couple of low-light shots due to shake.

Most low light shots are sharp but only those subjects are blurred who were moving (concert shots) but see the dias, lights, musical instrument, the banner in front of dias all are sharp and neat. This proves good low-light quality of the camera.

To mention more about Ellen shots that Whereever flash is used images are uniformly exposed (and none is overexposed), colors are great.

Now case of Ed Jay's images
http://www.pbase.com/ejcpa/inbox

Here except first two images most others look bit soft. But first two images are Bingo without flash. With flash images in the store are with great details, reach of flash seems very good.

After saying all I still would like to see different jpg setting images rather than RAW. Because mostly I dont like hell lot of PP.

On the other hand for special cases RAW are great advantages, and adds tones of creativity. And if you are looking for good RAW feature at prosumer level, kodak is definitely best choice because of their own superb software support. That made it almost hassle free to use for a novice too.

I am still waiting for images from NJdevil.
Atindra

Hi
Hasta (is this your name?)

You are taking great interest in P850 as I am. Still I dont have negative impressions about the camera because all images I see, I rate them according to conditions (exif data) or the settings which were choosen. If they are not available then I would wait for it but wont build negative perception. Because whatever I saw for images with right settings are just great as I pointed out by posting with specific examples. One more example is Ellen's whole gallery on Kodak site where no exif available but out of 27 just 2 -3 shots are bad. Low light shots are superb, which tell a lot about low-light focus ability and IS abilities of the camera.

Now your efforts for RAW are very helpful to show the diff. I have never dealt with RAW sofar and I basically avoid Post processing, I like out-of-camera images mostly. But for many other enthusiasts, creative shooters RAW is big boon. They can have full control over image processing and that will be immensely satisfacotry for them.

What really impresses me is the improvement in the versatality of Kodak easyshare software in leaps and bounds. Unlike FZ30, Kodak released a camera with RAW when they were ready with powerful software to support it. While other prosumers are not offering RAW (I dont know baout S2IS).

The image which Ellen sent is really a bad example to demonstrat but still your efforts really could highlight the usability of RAW processing.
Thanks for all your efforts.
Atindra

Very basic explanation, but the Easyshare software is very basic indeed:

http://perso.wanadoo.es/kodakpseries/proceed.htm

Not three hours as I said, but almost eight... Not at full working, for sure

Hasta!

--
Please, excuse my poor english...

arribar said:

Mato.
Sorry for my bad english... its worse than yours.

Click to expand...

Again: NO!

arribar said:

I really don't get the point. A few weeks ago I had my doubts......
bying the Canon s2 or the Sony H1????. I was leaning to the H1
because of (in my opinion) better results in automode. When I read
about this new P850 I waited to see the (first) pictures of this
new Kodak. Till now I'm not happy. Yesterday I allready asked
(because the pictures of Ellen are about 1 and others about 2 MB)
or the finest quality for the jpg's was used. Thats beacause Mike
wrote that a typical jpeg-file ffrom the 850 should be 3 till 3.5
mb. That would give an indication that there was less compression
than others.

Click to expand...

I'm not quite happy too. As I said on other post, I think the images will look excellent viewed at full screen and printed in normal sizes, due to its good color, no CA, no PF... But viewed at 100% they don't look as good as I was expecting. I don't know which the compression was (too tired to look at it now...), but I wouldn't say that is going to be the reason.

Any way, let's give some time to our "reviewers" to know the new cameras

arribar said:

Now your showing the rawfile and the result after processing but
what does it says... ? Its lighter, but the PF is even more
pronounced. It does'nt make me more enthousiast for the camera.
These pictures doesn't do good to the 850. I. still waiting for jpg
in automode and with best qualitysettings to compare with the H1. I
know Mato that you are still as enthousiast as I was in the
beginnning but can you tell me how you really think about it
(till)now.?

Click to expand...

Don't take that RAW pictures as a significative sample. Ellen told me he could not see what it was in the picture, but was one RAW he had shot in a hurry. I have used it more as to view how the RAW processing is, than to explore how good (or bad...) can be the final results.

I remember that Mike's RAW samples were excellent even viewed at 100 %. Nothing to see with these JPGs.

So I'd say it's still too soon to conclude something, but at this point I think that enthusiast user's looking for "performance photos" will have to shot in RAW, since JPGs, though excellent for P&S use, faults on detail and sharpness.

But... let's wait and see.

Un saludo.

--
Please, excuse my poor english...

Atindra said:

Hi
Hasta (is this your name?)

Click to expand...

Hi... ¿?

Hehehe! No, my name is Marcos. Hasta is just a salute we use in my group of friends. Didn't know how to finish my posts, so... hasta!

Atindra said:

You are taking great interest in P850 as I am. Still I dont have
negative impressions about the camera because all images I see, I
rate them according to conditions (exif data) or the settings which
were choosen. If they are not available then I would wait for it
but wont build negative perception. Because whatever I saw for
images with right settings are just great as I pointed out by
posting with specific examples. One more example is Ellen's whole
gallery on Kodak site where no exif available but out of 27 just 2
-3 shots are bad. Low light shots are superb, which tell a lot
about low-light focus ability and IS abilities of the camera.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree with you that the images look excellent when viewed at full screen or printed. Also we can expect good performance from the autofocus (a nice point in my 6340 and 7440) and IS, and I would say in so many other details.

But I would like to see better detail and lower noise on the JPGs samples when viewed at actual pixel, as I say in the post above.

Atindra said:

Now your efforts for RAW are very helpful to show the diff. I have
never dealt with RAW sofar and I basically avoid Post processing, I
like out-of-camera images mostly. But for many other enthusiasts,
creative shooters RAW is big boon. They can have full control over
image processing and that will be immensely satisfacotry for them.
What really impresses me is the improvement in the versatality of
Kodak easyshare software in leaps and bounds.

Click to expand...

I bought my KM Z2 mainly to explore what RAW could really make, and it's as you say: full control and extra information (RAW: 12 bits per channel -- JPG: 8 bits per channel), that is welcomed in some extreme light conditions.

Unlike FZ30, Kodak

Atindra said:

released a camera with RAW when they were ready with powerful
software to support it. While other prosumers are not offering RAW
(I dont know baout S2IS).
The image which Ellen sent is really a bad example to demonstrat
but still your efforts really could highlight the usability of RAW
processing.

Click to expand...

Well, we have time, but now we know how the RAW process is

Atindra said:

Thanks for all your efforts.
Atindra

Click to expand...

You know what it comes here: hasta!

--
Please, excuse my poor english...

I was so busy with the RAW proceedings page, that I didn't notice the new shots from Ellen.

And, at last, the 100_0205 it looks GREAT to me, even when viewed at 100 %. That was the result I was expecting And so does the flowers macro shot.

There is quite a big difference in the detail with the first shots I saw. That makes me change my (still provisional) opinion in an enthusiast use of the camera using JPGs.

That leaves me anxious for more...

Hasta!

--
Please, excuse my poor english...

Hi arribar

I didn't see the new images from Ellen. 100_0205 and 100_0116 looks REAL GOOD to me, with good detail and sharpness. I don't know why, but there is a real change there.

So... let's wait and see, because it seems the camera is going to be as good as we expected.

Hasta!

--
Please, excuse my poor english...

Mato34 said:

Hi arribar

I didn't see the new images from Ellen. 100_0205 and 100_0116 looks
REAL GOOD to me, with good detail and sharpness. I don't know why,
but there is a real change there.

Click to expand...

The difference may be explained by the fact that these new pictures are straight from the camera. The earlier pictures from Ellen were re-saved by OfotoNow, which halved the file size of the pics.

Bas

Hahaha!

I posted the same that you say here in another thread, but you were fastest than me.

We'll see the next time, cowboy

--
Please, excuse my poor english...

I put a link to that page a few days ago (I read you ), and also some of that images can be found at the Official Kodak Site, linked too.

Anyway, I've taken some phots of "hands on" the P880. But I think I need to reestructure the site, as the info is growing and growing...

Thanks a lot for your interest.

Un saludo.

--
Please, excuse my poor english...