Raw is war!

I have some questions about RAW image output. I went to the Big Apple Circus at Lincoln Center in NYC yesterday, took some shots. Lighting was not good at all. Had to pull out the trusty 50/1.4 to get anything. Shot everything at 1000 ISO with the D60. Actions shots were very tough to get perfect due to slow (1/60, 1/90) shutter speed and wide open lense( 1.4,1.8,2.0). I managed to get a group of great shots. I am trying to edit and collect all of the good shots when I can across a question/problem.

Problem: When I open Breezebrowser, select the image, you see a 16% preview of the image (the screen where you see the 16% preview, the EXIF and histogram). I'm not talking about the preview of the image when you go to convert it. Here's the problem, the 16% preview is much sharper than the actual output. Even if I reduce the output to 16% to match BB preview.

Really not sure if I'm doing anything wrong, but the preview is much sharper that the actual converted image.

Any help would be appreciated.
--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

BB has a terrible interface and workflow. You should try YARC Plus.

John

J Lefcourt said:

I have some questions about RAW image output. I went to the Big
Apple Circus at Lincoln Center in NYC yesterday, took some shots.
Lighting was not good at all. Had to pull out the trusty 50/1.4 to
get anything. Shot everything at 1000 ISO with the D60. Actions
shots were very tough to get perfect due to slow (1/60, 1/90)
shutter speed and wide open lense( 1.4,1.8,2.0). I managed to get a
group of great shots. I am trying to edit and collect all of the
good shots when I can across a question/problem.

Problem: When I open Breezebrowser, select the image, you see a
16% preview of the image (the screen where you see the 16% preview,
the EXIF and histogram). I'm not talking about the preview of the
image when you go to convert it. Here's the problem, the 16%
preview is much sharper than the actual output. Even if I reduce
the output to 16% to match BB preview.

Really not sure if I'm doing anything wrong, but the preview is
much sharper that the actual converted image.

Any help would be appreciated.
--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

Click to expand...

I forget which site had a 3 way comparison between BB, Yarc and Canons piece of garbage software. It was a tossup between BB and Yarc. I am going to try Yarc next.

I still can't figure out my problem.

JL

John Davis said:

John

J Lefcourt said:

I have some questions about RAW image output. I went to the Big
Apple Circus at Lincoln Center in NYC yesterday, took some shots.
Lighting was not good at all. Had to pull out the trusty 50/1.4 to
get anything. Shot everything at 1000 ISO with the D60. Actions
shots were very tough to get perfect due to slow (1/60, 1/90)
shutter speed and wide open lense( 1.4,1.8,2.0). I managed to get a
group of great shots. I am trying to edit and collect all of the
good shots when I can across a question/problem.

Problem: When I open Breezebrowser, select the image, you see a
16% preview of the image (the screen where you see the 16% preview,
the EXIF and histogram). I'm not talking about the preview of the
image when you go to convert it. Here's the problem, the 16%
preview is much sharper than the actual output. Even if I reduce
the output to 16% to match BB preview.

Really not sure if I'm doing anything wrong, but the preview is
much sharper that the actual converted image.

Any help would be appreciated.
--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

I prefer BB myself. You might check to see if you have the "high quality" setting checked in the View menu. BB seems to do some sort of unsharp mask to the preview images when this option is checked.

Michael

J Lefcourt said:

I still can't figure out my problem.

JL

John Davis said:

John

J Lefcourt said:

I have some questions about RAW image output. I went to the Big
Apple Circus at Lincoln Center in NYC yesterday, took some shots.
Lighting was not good at all. Had to pull out the trusty 50/1.4 to
get anything. Shot everything at 1000 ISO with the D60. Actions
shots were very tough to get perfect due to slow (1/60, 1/90)
shutter speed and wide open lense( 1.4,1.8,2.0). I managed to get a
group of great shots. I am trying to edit and collect all of the
good shots when I can across a question/problem.

Problem: When I open Breezebrowser, select the image, you see a
16% preview of the image (the screen where you see the 16% preview,
the EXIF and histogram). I'm not talking about the preview of the
image when you go to convert it. Here's the problem, the 16%
preview is much sharper than the actual output. Even if I reduce
the output to 16% to match BB preview.

Really not sure if I'm doing anything wrong, but the preview is
much sharper that the actual converted image.

Any help would be appreciated.
--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

Click to expand...

--
G2, 420EX, Tiffen 2x & 0.75x
http://www.morpheusmultimedia.com/gallery

Mickey wins the prize. But, why can't I get the images to be that sharp after I apply FM's Sharpening actions. I've tried all combinations and still can't get it to come out that sharp. I'll try basic sharpening in PS and see what happens.

Thanks Mickey!

JL

Mickey said:

I prefer BB myself. You might check to see if you have the "high
quality" setting checked in the View menu. BB seems to do some
sort of unsharp mask to the preview images when this option is
checked.

Michael

Click to expand...

--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

A D60? Sadly I'm still stuck with my G2 but dreaming of the day I can move up to the D60. Hopefully by Feb/Mar. Really, it's sad, I honestly am dreaming of it.

I haven't tried Fred's sharpening actions myself. I use a modified edge mask technique in PS 7 for my G2 files and am really happy with the results. Same thing as regular USM, but doesn't sharpen the noise. So even if you downsample to the BB preview size and USM in Photoshop, they don't look as sharp as in BB? Can you post or email me a (full size) sample of one of the files? I could try my sharpening method on it. My email's [email protected]

Michael

P.S. Glad I could help

P.P.S. I'm thinking of getting the 28-135 IS as a starter lens with the D60. You seem to have a good collection there and I wonder what your opinion is on that lens.

J Lefcourt said:

Mickey wins the prize. But, why can't I get the images to be that
sharp after I apply FM's Sharpening actions. I've tried all
combinations and still can't get it to come out that sharp. I'll
try basic sharpening in PS and see what happens.

Thanks Mickey!

Click to expand...

--
G2, 420EX, Tiffen 2x & 0.75x
http://www.morpheusmultimedia.com/gallery

Jonathan Lefcourt said:

But, why can't I get the images to be that sharp after I apply FM's Sharpening actions.

Click to expand...

One thing a lot of people overlook is the fact that you have to downsize the photo to see how it will actually look compared to a comparison shot. When you view a 20 inch photo on screen, then zoom up or down to see the complete picture, in most cases, the quality is somewhat lacking.

You win a 4.2mb jpeg! Only kidding. Can you mailserver/bandwidth handle this file? If so, I will send you one.

On your PSS, I think that it's a great first lense. My first 2 were that one and a 50/1.4. I hardly pickup the 28-135 anymore. Lucky for me yesterday I brought the 50/1.4 or I would have walked out with a big goose egg.

The 70-200L IS is an amazing piece of glass. Love that one the most though.

Mickey said:

I haven't tried Fred's sharpening actions myself. I use a modified
edge mask technique in PS 7 for my G2 files and am really happy
with the results. Same thing as regular USM, but doesn't sharpen
the noise. So even if you downsample to the BB preview size and
USM in Photoshop, they don't look as sharp as in BB? Can you post
or email me a (full size) sample of one of the files? I could try
my sharpening method on it. My email's [email protected]

Michael

P.S. Glad I could help

P.P.S. I'm thinking of getting the 28-135 IS as a starter lens
with the D60. You seem to have a good collection there and I
wonder what your opinion is on that lens.

J Lefcourt said:

Mickey wins the prize. But, why can't I get the images to be that
sharp after I apply FM's Sharpening actions. I've tried all
combinations and still can't get it to come out that sharp. I'll
try basic sharpening in PS and see what happens.

Thanks Mickey!

Click to expand...

--
G2, 420EX, Tiffen 2x & 0.75x
http://www.morpheusmultimedia.com/gallery

Click to expand...

--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

I've found that the previews in BB can be way out with difficult images.

For example I have been embedding the D60 profile you get with BB and retaining that profile when opening in Photoshop. Fine for landscapes and many portrait shots but hopeless for a recent shoot inside a marquee that had halogen lighting reflecting off the canvass ceiling and casting a tungsten look. On raw conversion the red carpet was sickly pink and the red table napkins purple. I tried all sorts of white balance tricks to no avail, but the frustrating thing was that the BB previews looked fine. I extracted the JPEGS into photoshop and they were much more like the previews. I embedded adobe RGB 1998 in the end, WB on tungsten, and used the gama picker in PS in Curves. Phew!

When I shot film I wasn't even really aware of colour balance - jusy slapped a filter on and hoped for the best.

As regards USM I'm not sure the FM action is working quite right. I've seen one or two comments elsewhere but he's away till 2nd January. I get better results by sharpening in LAB mode: IMAGE> MODE> LAB, CHANNELS palette> LIGHTNESS channel (turns to black&white), FILTER> USM e.g. 175/1/1, CHANNELS palette> LAB (turns back to colour, IMAGES> MODE> RGB

I have downsized to 16% in PS and it doesn't look like the BB preview. Very strange that the USM in BB works so well on the preview. If I turn off High Quality view in BB it looks like extracted jpeg in PS.

JL

arley clark said:

arley clark said:

But, why can't I get the images to be that sharp after I apply FM's Sharpening actions.

Click to expand...

One thing a lot of people overlook is the fact that you have to
downsize the photo to see how it will actually look compared to a
comparison shot. When you view a 20 inch photo on screen, then zoom
up or down to see the complete picture, in most cases, the quality
is somewhat lacking.

Click to expand...

--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

J Lefcourt said:

You win a 4.2mb jpeg! Only kidding. Can you mailserver/bandwidth
handle this file? If so, I will send you one.

Click to expand...

Sure, send away. I'm heading out for a couple of days tomorrow morning but if I get the file tonight I'll take a peek at it before I go.

Jonathan Lefcourt said:

On your PSS, I think that it's a great first lense. My first 2
were that one and a 50/1.4. I hardly pickup the 28-135 anymore.
Lucky for me yesterday I brought the 50/1.4 or I would have walked
out with a big goose egg.

Click to expand...

Those were the two lenses I was thinking of starting off with too. I really like the sound of the 50/1.4 for low light and for portraits, but I think the versatility of the 5x zoom and wider FOV of the 28-135 would suit me best to start. As long as I can get sharpness similar to my G2 I'll be happy. I'm used to shooting at ISO 50 so I'm hoping that the D60 @ ISO 400 or 800 will make up for the slower lens until I get something like the 50/1.4. I also want the Sigma 8mm for spherical panoramas but that will have to come later. I need to start selling some prints/digifiles so I can justify all this cost!

Michael

--
G2, 420EX, Tiffen 2x & 0.75x
http://www.morpheusmultimedia.com/gallery

The file is on the way.

One misconception that people have about digital SLR's is that the images will be sharper all of the time. I can't tell you how many out of focus, not completly out of focus, but just enough to not look tack sharp pictures that I have taken. The sensor on the G2 and most point and shoots are much smaller and more firgiving that SLR's. DOF is usually not a real issue in a traditional P & S. The G2 and my S40 allow you to choose shutter speed and f/stop giving you the ability to work the DOF.

Sometimes the autofocus doesn't work as well as you think. I had that problem yesterday, and attribute it to the dark conditions. The D60 is not the best autofocus camera (in dark conditions). The 1D is supposed to be much better.

My S40 takes great shots as you G2 does. Don't look down on these cameras as they work very well.

Mickey said:

J Lefcourt said:

You win a 4.2mb jpeg! Only kidding. Can you mailserver/bandwidth
handle this file? If so, I will send you one.

Click to expand...

Sure, send away. I'm heading out for a couple of days tomorrow
morning but if I get the file tonight I'll take a peek at it before
I go.

Mickey64564 said:

On your PSS, I think that it's a great first lense. My first 2
were that one and a 50/1.4. I hardly pickup the 28-135 anymore.
Lucky for me yesterday I brought the 50/1.4 or I would have walked
out with a big goose egg.

Click to expand...

Those were the two lenses I was thinking of starting off with too.
I really like the sound of the 50/1.4 for low light and for
portraits, but I think the versatility of the 5x zoom and wider FOV
of the 28-135 would suit me best to start. As long as I can get
sharpness similar to my G2 I'll be happy. I'm used to shooting at
ISO 50 so I'm hoping that the D60 @ ISO 400 or 800 will make up for
the slower lens until I get something like the 50/1.4. I also want
the Sigma 8mm for spherical panoramas but that will have to come
later. I need to start selling some prints/digifiles so I can
justify all this cost!

Michael

--
G2, 420EX, Tiffen 2x & 0.75x
http://www.morpheusmultimedia.com/gallery

Click to expand...

--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

Your at 1000 ISO.
This means your noise levels are high.

USM'ing a shrunk picture is USM'ing a much lower noise picture because the pixels are averaged together which lowers noise.

In your full-size pic your working on the full-size pic and the noise is not masked in this case. Noise lowers resolution and thus the sharpness.

John Mason said:

Your at 1000 ISO.
This means your noise levels are high.

USM'ing a shrunk picture is USM'ing a much lower noise picture
because the pixels are averaged together which lowers noise.

In your full-size pic your working on the full-size pic and the
noise is not masked in this case. Noise lowers resolution and thus
the sharpness.

Click to expand...

--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

The ISO issue will indeed lower the effective resolution a bit but the biggest problem with that shot is camera shake and motion blur due to slow shutter speed, IMO. That 1/90 sec speed should have been enough to prevent camera shake at 80mm, but it's pretty close to the minimum recommended handheld shutter speed for the f/l so maybe the camera wasn't as steady as it could have been. Also, those subjects were moving quite a bit so there's some subject motion blur as well - look at the right arm of the woman in the foreground and the jewels on the leftmost horse. There's some very clear motion blur there. IMO, you would have been better off opening up all the way to get a faster shutter speed. Softness due to wider aperture in my experience is much easier to correct in Photoshop than motion blur, but then again I haven't tested the sharpness of the 50/1.4 @ 1.4 and 2.0.

No amount of USM will restore that picture fully, but it looks pretty good when downsized to 50% or lower with some stiff ( 200) low radius (0.4) USM.

Michael

John Mason said:

Your at 1000 ISO.
This means your noise levels are high.

USM'ing a shrunk picture is USM'ing a much lower noise picture
because the pixels are averaged together which lowers noise.

In your full-size pic your working on the full-size pic and the
noise is not masked in this case. Noise lowers resolution and thus
the sharpness.

Click to expand...

--
G2, 420EX, Tiffen 2x & 0.75x
http://www.morpheusmultimedia.com/gallery

Mickey said:

No amount of USM will restore that picture fully, but it looks
pretty good when downsized to 50% or lower with some stiff ( 200)
low radius (0.4) USM.

Michael

John Mason said:

Your at 1000 ISO.
This means your noise levels are high.

USM'ing a shrunk picture is USM'ing a much lower noise picture
because the pixels are averaged together which lowers noise.

In your full-size pic your working on the full-size pic and the
noise is not masked in this case. Noise lowers resolution and thus
the sharpness.

Click to expand...

--
G2, 420EX, Tiffen 2x & 0.75x
http://www.morpheusmultimedia.com/gallery

Click to expand...

--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

Review is at: http://www.digitalfocus.net/sections/reviews/CanonRAWpt1/RAWIntro/RAWIntro.htm

Hope this helps.

Peter

J Lefcourt said:

I still can't figure out my problem.

JL

John Davis said:

John

J Lefcourt said:

I have some questions about RAW image output. I went to the Big
Apple Circus at Lincoln Center in NYC yesterday, took some shots.
Lighting was not good at all. Had to pull out the trusty 50/1.4 to
get anything. Shot everything at 1000 ISO with the D60. Actions
shots were very tough to get perfect due to slow (1/60, 1/90)
shutter speed and wide open lense( 1.4,1.8,2.0). I managed to get a
group of great shots. I am trying to edit and collect all of the
good shots when I can across a question/problem.

Problem: When I open Breezebrowser, select the image, you see a
16% preview of the image (the screen where you see the 16% preview,
the EXIF and histogram). I'm not talking about the preview of the
image when you go to convert it. Here's the problem, the 16%
preview is much sharper than the actual output. Even if I reduce
the output to 16% to match BB preview.

Really not sure if I'm doing anything wrong, but the preview is
much sharper that the actual converted image.

Any help would be appreciated.
--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

Click to expand...

--
Peter Sills
Digital Focus
http://www.digitalfocus.net

Turn it off with control-Q if you don't want it. (I think that's the key, look in the View menu).

-- Lew

J Lefcourt said:

I have some questions about RAW image output. I went to the Big
Apple Circus at Lincoln Center in NYC yesterday, took some shots.
Lighting was not good at all. Had to pull out the trusty 50/1.4 to
get anything. Shot everything at 1000 ISO with the D60. Actions
shots were very tough to get perfect due to slow (1/60, 1/90)
shutter speed and wide open lense( 1.4,1.8,2.0). I managed to get a
group of great shots. I am trying to edit and collect all of the
good shots when I can across a question/problem.

Problem: When I open Breezebrowser, select the image, you see a
16% preview of the image (the screen where you see the 16% preview,
the EXIF and histogram). I'm not talking about the preview of the
image when you go to convert it. Here's the problem, the 16%
preview is much sharper than the actual output. Even if I reduce
the output to 16% to match BB preview.

Really not sure if I'm doing anything wrong, but the preview is
much sharper that the actual converted image.

Any help would be appreciated.
--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

Click to expand...

Do try to be helpful, please.

Casting unsubstantiated and unsupported aspersions does nothing to answer the guy's question.

-- Lew

John Davis said:

John

J Lefcourt said:

I have some questions about RAW image output. I went to the Big
Apple Circus at Lincoln Center in NYC yesterday, took some shots.
Lighting was not good at all. Had to pull out the trusty 50/1.4 to
get anything. Shot everything at 1000 ISO with the D60. Actions
shots were very tough to get perfect due to slow (1/60, 1/90)
shutter speed and wide open lense( 1.4,1.8,2.0). I managed to get a
group of great shots. I am trying to edit and collect all of the
good shots when I can across a question/problem.

Problem: When I open Breezebrowser, select the image, you see a
16% preview of the image (the screen where you see the 16% preview,
the EXIF and histogram). I'm not talking about the preview of the
image when you go to convert it. Here's the problem, the 16%
preview is much sharper than the actual output. Even if I reduce
the output to 16% to match BB preview.

Really not sure if I'm doing anything wrong, but the preview is
much sharper that the actual converted image.

Any help would be appreciated.
--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I just sent you downsized and sharpened versions. One at 50% and one at 25%.

Michael

J Lefcourt said:

Mickey said:

No amount of USM will restore that picture fully, but it looks
pretty good when downsized to 50% or lower with some stiff ( 200)
low radius (0.4) USM.

Michael

John Mason said:

Your at 1000 ISO.
This means your noise levels are high.

USM'ing a shrunk picture is USM'ing a much lower noise picture
because the pixels are averaged together which lowers noise.

In your full-size pic your working on the full-size pic and the
noise is not masked in this case. Noise lowers resolution and thus
the sharpness.

Click to expand...

--
G2, 420EX, Tiffen 2x & 0.75x
http://www.morpheusmultimedia.com/gallery

Click to expand...

--
Jonathan Lefcourt
D60,24-70L, 70-200L 2.8 IS, 15-30 Sigma (wish it was 2.8!)
50 1.4, 28-135 IS, Metz 54, 550EX, S40
and a lot of other stuff I drag around!

Click to expand...

--
G2, 420EX, Tiffen 2x & 0.75x
http://www.morpheusmultimedia.com/gallery