Photoshop LE and software in general.

Hi, I am new to digital photography (about 2 weeks now) and have a G2.

I took a vacation and shot most of my pictures in raw format. Upon reading the manual for zoombrowser they imply that converting to TIFF in 16-bit format gives you the most color accuracy. I do that and then look at the images with Photoshop LE and most of the functions are unavailable in this format!

I guess my questions are; Am I following the right flowpath as regards to processing my images as to the best color? What do you do as far as converting your raw images and then working with them? Should I just balance the TIFFs and then convert them to 8-bit? Does this defeat the purpose of 16-bit in the first place. I would think every conversion could add "noise" to an image. Right now I am using the software included with the G2. Is there a program that Does work with 16-bit TIFFs that is reasonable as to my wallet?

I am very happy with my G2. I bought it so I would have a small easy to carry camera that I would feel free to experiment with manual photography and not have to spend a fortune on film.

Next question. Whats the best place to post images for critique? I've discovered a place called photo.net and see a lot of you use pbase.

I hope this message isn't to disorganized! --Tony Woodville Learner

Tony W said:

Hi, I am new to digital photography (about 2 weeks now) and have a
G2.
I took a vacation and shot most of my pictures in raw format. Upon
reading the manual for zoombrowser they imply that converting to
TIFF in 16-bit format gives you the most color accuracy. I do that
and then look at the images with Photoshop LE and most of the
functions are unavailable in this format!

Click to expand...

Yes, they will be. Even the latest full price version 6 of Photoshop only lets you do a handful of things with 16-bit TIFFs. They are very difficult to work with.

Tony W said:

I guess my questions are; Am I following the right flowpath as
regards to processing my images as to the best color? What do you
do as far as converting your raw images and then working with them?
Should I just balance the TIFFs and then convert them to 8-bit?

Click to expand...

I would just work with 8-bit TIFFs really. You won't be able to see the difference between 8-bit and 16-bit with your eyes on screen (I never have) and unless you're printing at big sizes (above A4/Letter) I doubt you'll notice in print either.

I'm sure the photography snobs will leap in and tell us that we absolutely must use 16-bit, but if you want my opinion the 16-bit versus 8-bit TIFF issue is one of digital photography's equivalents to all the audiophile hi-fi snobbery that goes on. Sure, the -well- trained ear or eye might just be able to detect a very subtle difference, but 99% of us won't.

Tony W said:

Does this defeat the purpose of 16-bit in the first place. I would
think every conversion could add "noise" to an image.

Click to expand...

No, if you are saving in a lossless format like TIFF then you won't gain noise between conversions. You will of course if you use a lossy format like JPEG.

Tony W said:

Right now I
am using the software included with the G2. Is there a program
that Does work with 16-bit TIFFs that is reasonable as to my
wallet?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure, but unlikely to be much for a reasonable price. Even the full price version 6 of Photoshop has rather limited 16-bit support (many functions are ghosted out).

Stick with 8-bit - your workflow will be much much simpler and you really won't be losing out in any significant or noticeable way.

Cheers
Martin

Martin Eager said:

Tony W said:

Hi, I am new to digital photography (about 2 weeks now) and have a
G2.
I took a vacation and shot most of my pictures in raw format. Upon
reading the manual for zoombrowser they imply that converting to
TIFF in 16-bit format gives you the most color accuracy. I do that
and then look at the images with Photoshop LE and most of the
functions are unavailable in this format!

Click to expand...

Would Photoshop Elements be better in that it may alow more advanced use than Photoshop LE for such manipulations ? PLease advise as I have the free LE which came with the 995 but am considering the Elements version - I think that the full version is way too much both in use and price for my usage.

Click to expand...

RC

ARC said:

Would Photoshop Elements be better in that it may alow more advanced use than Photoshop LE for such manipulations ? PLease advise as I have the free LE which came with the 995 but am considering the Elements version - I think that the full version is way too much both in use and price for my usage.

Click to expand...

If you mean would Photoshop Elements be better for 16-bit TIFF than LE, then the answer is no. Even the full version of Photoshop can only handle 16-bit TIFFs in rather limited ways (many of the functions remain ghosted out).

For normal day-to-day use I don't know how Elements compares to LE though.

Cheers
Martin

For day to day use Photoshop Elements is far superior. For one, it has more than one level of undo, which I always found to be a pain, and the interface is better overall.

Regards,

Theo

Martin Eager said:

ARC said:

Would Photoshop Elements be better in that it may alow more advanced use than Photoshop LE for such manipulations ? PLease advise as I have the free LE which came with the 995 but am considering the Elements version - I think that the full version is way too much both in use and price for my usage.

Click to expand...

If you mean would Photoshop Elements be better for 16-bit TIFF than
LE, then the answer is no. Even the full version of Photoshop can
only handle 16-bit TIFFs in rather limited ways (many of the
functions remain ghosted out).

For normal day-to-day use I don't know how Elements compares to LE
though.

Cheers
Martin

Click to expand...

What are some real useful features of PS 6.0 that would be missing in PS Elements?

Theo said:

Regards,

Theo

Martin Eager said:

ARC said:

Would Photoshop Elements be better in that it may alow more advanced use than Photoshop LE for such manipulations ? PLease advise as I have the free LE which came with the 995 but am considering the Elements version - I think that the full version is way too much both in use and price for my usage.

Click to expand...

If you mean would Photoshop Elements be better for 16-bit TIFF than
LE, then the answer is no. Even the full version of Photoshop can
only handle 16-bit TIFFs in rather limited ways (many of the
functions remain ghosted out).

For normal day-to-day use I don't know how Elements compares to LE
though.

Cheers
Martin

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

One of the key features that I've read is missing is the ability to do layer masks (it will do layers but not masks). I find this hard to believe, so I'd appreciate it if someone could confirm this.

.... Jim

Will said:

What are some real useful features of PS 6.0 that would be missing
in PS Elements?

Click to expand...

Tony W said:

Is there a program
that Does work with 16-bit TIFFs > that is reasonable as to my
wallet?

Click to expand...

Paint Shop Pro.
http://www.jasc.com

PSP is a great program and very economical. Also has an image browser (don't think Photoshop does.)

Tony W said:

Next question. Whats the best > place to post images for critique?
I've discovered a place called photo.net and see a lot of you use

Click to expand...

Will pbase be around next year? Maybe, maybe not. I use http://photo.net .

The interface is not fancy like some but it's been around for over 6 years and is USER based. Great forums also.

ARC said:

Member said:

Would Photoshop Elements be better in that it may alow more advanced use than Photoshop LE for such manipulations ? PLease advise as I have the free LE which came with the 995 but am considering the Elements version - I think that the full version is way too much both in use and price for my usage.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

PS Elements is a repackaging of most of the PS 6 features, but they have renamed many of the features with photograhy lingo. That said there actually quite a bit of similarity between PS LE and Elements. What is in LE that is not in Elements is Curves, I'm not sure why they left it out (I keep LE on my computer just for this). As stated by the other posters what is in Elements and not in LE, is multiple undos (full history function), very useful. Also there is a save for web function which provides a good preview function of your proposed JPEG compression (They should couple this to a resizing too). Neither version does lab color, although Elements does support some actions such as ultra sharpen 5.0 pro which puts the sequence under "automate" and uses the alpha channel. In general Elements is much more useful for most tasks over LE, it does take much longer to boot up the program.
Regards, Mike K

I believe that every time you use undo, you degrade the image slightly. I'm told the better practice is to use layer - if you don't like the change and remove the layer, you won't degrade the image. You have to do any sharpening last, since you can't use a layer to do sharpening.

Alan

Theo said:

Regards,

Theo

Martin Eager said:

ARC said:

Would Photoshop Elements be better in that it may alow more advanced use than Photoshop LE for such manipulations ? PLease advise as I have the free LE which came with the 995 but am considering the Elements version - I think that the full version is way too much both in use and price for my usage.

Click to expand...

If you mean would Photoshop Elements be better for 16-bit TIFF than
LE, then the answer is no. Even the full version of Photoshop can
only handle 16-bit TIFFs in rather limited ways (many of the
functions remain ghosted out).

For normal day-to-day use I don't know how Elements compares to LE
though.

Cheers
Martin

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

ALan Fairley said:

I believe that every time you use undo, you degrade the image
slightly. I'm told the better practice is to use layer - if you
don't like the change and remove the layer, you won't degrade the
image. You have to do any sharpening last, since you can't use a
layer to do sharpening.

Click to expand...

Are you sure about this? What's your reference?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's not something I've ever encountered using Photoshop extensively for web & graphic design plus digital photography. The single Undo (CTRL-Z) and history pallette are lossless as far as I'm aware, but I would be interested to read any information that proves otherwise as of course this would be important.

Cheers
Martin

Tony W said:

Next question. Whats the best place to post images for critique?
I've discovered a place called photo.net and see a lot of you use
pbase.

Click to expand...

I tried several of the free posting services (most them were free about 1 year ago) but found that they crashed too frequently (pbase) or were slow to the point of frustration (like imagestation). So I paid for a subscription to fototime.com which has a very convienient upload program. Each site has different capabilities to upload, display addresses, selected albums, add comments, etc. Depends on what you are going to use it for, how much space you are going to want, etc.
Mike K

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why would you use TIFF if it means sacrificing so many features? Would it not be better to just use plain RGB? Why use tiff instead of png or bmp?

Mat

Martin Eager56124 said:

If you mean would Photoshop Elements be better for 16-bit TIFF than
LE, then the answer is no. Even the full version of Photoshop can
only handle 16-bit TIFFs in rather limited ways (many of the
functions remain ghosted out).

For normal day-to-day use I don't know how Elements compares to LE
though.

Cheers
Martin

Click to expand...

Mathew Johnston said:

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why would you use TIFF if it
means sacrificing so many features? Would it not be better to just
use plain RGB? Why use tiff instead of png or bmp?

Click to expand...

TIFF is a tried and trusted lossless format and a bit of an 'industry standard' and compatabile with a very wide range of applications. Standard 8-bit TIFF (which is how most people know TIFFs) doesn't mean sacrificing any features - you can do every single function on a standard TIFF in Photoshop. What we're discussing here is 16-bit TIFFs, which is an entirely different matter. Some people advocate that 16-bit TIFFs contain more detail and colour information, but any difference to 8-bit is more subtle than most eyes can see. And since most software doesn't give you the full range of features to work on a 16-bit TIFF with, it's not really worth it (just my opinion though, others may beg to differ).

As for BMP, this is a lossless format too but generates enormous file sizes compared to TIFF. It's also platform dependant (Windows).

PNG is a good format, but not widely supported by all graphics software yet.

Cheers
Martin

That's the part that I don't understand. 8 bpp means that there is just that, 8 bits per pixel in which to encode colour info... each colour has to fall within 256 possible values. So far as I have understood in the past, you need at least 16 bits (65536 possible colours) to get a near photo quality image. I mean, try comparing your display between 8 bpp and 16 bpp; 8 bpp is obviously far from good enough, where 16 is getting there (but dithering produces issues). For the best quality don't you need 8 bpp for each R, G and B - 24 bpp? Or is that what the '8 bpp' for TIFF means?

Martin Eager56124 said:

Some people advocate that 16-bit TIFFs contain more detail
and colour information, but any difference to 8-bit is more subtle
than most eyes can see.

Click to expand...

Wow! Thanks for all the comments. It seems 16 bit is not well supported so I will stick with 8 and will look at Elements and/or Paint Shop Pro. I really can't afford the full version of PS (well, I could but my wife would have my head ), maybe later after I see how much time I am spending and can justify it. I will look around for a good book that explains techniques and weigh into it!

Thanks again, Tony

Mathew Johnston said:

That's the part that I don't understand. 8 bpp means that there is
just that, 8 bits per pixel in which to encode colour info... each
colour has to fall within 256 possible values. So far as I have
understood in the past, you need at least 16 bits (65536 possible
colours) to get a near photo quality image. I mean, try comparing
your display between 8 bpp and 16 bpp; 8 bpp is obviously far from
good enough, where 16 is getting there (but dithering produces
issues). For the best quality don't you need 8 bpp for each R, G
and B - 24 bpp? Or is that what the '8 bpp' for TIFF means?

Click to expand...

Yes that's what it means. An 8-bit TIFF produces 24-bit colour (because it's 8bpp per channel - so with R-G-B that's 3x8 = 24).

24-bit colour provides 16 million colours, which is clearly photo quality (most eyes cannot discern anywhere near that many colours).

If you work with 16-bit TIFFs then you can get 3x16 = 48bpp. But my argument is that unless you have a very high end digital camera, capable of -capturing- the information at such resolution, then there's little advantage to be gained by converting G2 shots (or similar) into 16-bit TIFF.

If you want a more thorough explanation then this site does it very well indeed:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/bit-depth.htm

Cheers
Martin

Hi,

I'd say you can benefit from 16 bits per channel if your camera really produces more than 8 bits of information AND if you need/want to do major adjustments in image brigthness. As others have said here, you would not see any difference between 8 and 16 bits if you just convert from 16 to 8, but if your image data is 8 bits and you start bending the values heavily (for example to lighten up dark parts) you'll quickly notice artefacts.

I use 16 bits regularly when scanning slides, then do the brightness and colour balance adjustments in Photoshop LE and then convert to 8 bits for scratch & dust work and other things, sometimes using Elements for that part. LE supports 16 bits, Elements does not (but it can convert to 8 bits).

regards,

Seppo

Tony W said:

Wow! Thanks for all the comments. It seems 16 bit is not well
supported so I will stick with 8 and will look at Elements and/or
Paint Shop Pro. I really can't afford the full version of PS
(well, I could but my wife would have my head ), maybe later
after I see how much time I am spending and can justify it. I will
look around for a good book that explains techniques and weigh into
it!

Thanks again, Tony

Click to expand...

Does the G2 produce 16 bits per channel?

Seppo Helle #65409 said:

I'd say you can benefit from 16 bits per channel if your camera
really produces more than 8 bits of information AND if you
need/want to do major adjustments in image brigthness.

Click to expand...

Mathew Johnston said:

Does the G2 produce 16 bits per channel?

Click to expand...

Nope. The G2 captures the information as 10-bit. You can only access the full 10-bit data if the shot is taken in RAW mode. Then you decide if you wish to export it as either an 8-bit TIFF or a 16-bit TIFF. By exporting to 16-bit TIFF you can get at those extra 2-bits of information. Whether this is worth it or not is open to debate.

Cheers
Martin