RAW vs. Super-fine JPEG

[Gary Berg]

See my answers interspersed in what you wrote:

I agree with most of what you say - but I do take exception to
comment #2. Why can't I adjust white balance, sharpening and
contrast?

There are a couple of issues here, and I think this will address most of your questions.

1) Once the image has been sharpened in the camera, if that creates artifacts those can't be gotten rid of by later editing; the in camera sharpening would have destroyed the information. Note I said "IF". I run normal sharpening all the time.

2) As far as adjusting contrast and white balance, this gets into the 8-bit limitation game. Have you looked at the histogram for an 8-bit image after you run levels on it? You know how it's all spikey? That's because of the gaps in the smoothness of the color transitions introduced by reducing the range of the color. Any sort of color adjustment, contrast, or levels does this to some extent, for one or more color channels. It may be subtle, but it's there.

Doing work in 16-bit doesn't help; if your intensities for red range from 0-128 and you expand them to run to 0-255 you are going to have fewer color divisions than you do if you started with 0-255. Using the levels command doesn't interpolate the colors, so going to 16-bit just means your color values are 0, 256, 512, 768, etc instead of 0, 1, 2, 3... You can't "create" detail in color resolution.

One of the basic postulates of post processing is to do as LITTLE
and a FEW changes as possible, since almost every change results in
some data loss. Therefore, using a JPEG instead of RAW starts you
off with one set of adjustments more than you may need.

Agreed, and JPEG may lose some information. But SF JPEG is awfully detailed, and really hasn't lost much information.

And RAW is WORTHLESS if you aren't going to post-process your images. If you are just going to crop and trim to size, RAW gains nothing for you except for more work. If you are going to convert directly from RAW to 8-bit TIF or JPEG, RAW gains nothing on a properly exposed image (exposure including whitebalance).

 

[mango]

exellent post, Gary. I agree that Raw mode adds nothing unless you need to play with the exposure/curves...but then you need your 1024 colors / channel instead of 256.

I think that you will find no jpeg artifacts when saved as superfine...even at 8x10 or larger.

You state in a later post that you use the mid-setting for sharpness. I found that this setting introduced visible artifacts at high-contrast interfaces. I've since turned it to -1 and have been pleased with the results. I almost always do a little unsharpening, but find that this mask does not work well as a "1 size fits all" filter as it's implimented in the camera...the amount needed depends on the size and amount of the detail in the pic.

anyway...thanks for the good, common sense post.

1) It is a lossless compression of the data. My understanding is
that SF JPEG is very good (consider that the files are about 50-75%
of the size of RAW), but you are throwing away tiny bits of detail
and introducing tiny bits of JPEG artifacts. Neither of which you
will likely notice unless you go past 8x10.

2) RAW allows you to "redo" white balance, sharpening, contrast,
and saturation after the image is moved to your computer. This is
an advantage to someone who will go to the effort of the processing
required.

3) RAW carries more bits of information than JPEG - JPEG is 8, and
RAW is 10 (or 12??). So if you convert RAW to 16-bit (or better)
TIF you can make huge changes to the exposure and still have a full
range of brightness in the resulting colors. If your JPEG has 256
possible variants of red (that's 8 bits), and you have to throw
half of them away, you've thrown away a "bit" of smoothness in
color range. If you have a RAW image, with 10 bits to represent
color variation, you can throw half of the possible colors away and
still have one more bit of color data than in JPEG.

It appears to me that if you have a good exposure, with a good
range of light through dark, that JPEG will capture an image as
"good" as RAW, as long as you got the right white balance (manually
or automatically).

I believe that RAW (not JPEG) is the only format that is equivalent
to negative film. What is recorded in RAW is what the camera
'see's. So I don't see why I should give up this RAW format. I
don't have a D60, D30 or G2 but only a S30 and have so far shot
more than 3,000 photos with this little S30, all in RAW and in RAW
only. I don't see I will ever try the JPEG format at all.

If the RAW format is not needed at all, perhaps it should not be
offered in the very first place regardless your camera is a D60,
D30 or G2?

 

[Lei Xu]

I agree with most of what you say - but I do take exception to
comment #2. Why can't I adjust white balance, sharpening and
contrast?

On top of what Gary said, adjust white balance in PS is very hard without some additional plugins. Before I used Color Mechanics, there's absolutely no way for me to correct the white balance. You can fiddle with the color balance tool forever and cannot get an acurate color representation. That's when I found out that whenver I do a proper custome WB, the color balance hardly need any adjustment. Of course now that there is Color Mechanics and a few other plugins that will aid in correction of white balance I guess you can adjust the white balance most of the time.

However, even with Color Mechanics, I have encountered picture that I took that is so bad that I can't correct it period. But those are the very rare cases. For me, I don't like to loss any potentially good shots, so I still do custom WB and use RAW all the time.

--
Phoenix
http://photo.vitsco.com

 

[Frank Mattia]

Please advise what other plugin you use, or possibly a workflow u could share. Since I decided to go to RAW I have opened a can of worms for myself. I have bb, color mechanic, some of the other plugins mentioned in this forum, to no avail.

Thanks

Frank M

I agree with most of what you say - but I do take exception to
comment #2. Why can't I adjust white balance, sharpening and
contrast?

On top of what Gary said, adjust white balance in PS is very hard
without some additional plugins. Before I used Color Mechanics,
there's absolutely no way for me to correct the white balance. You
can fiddle with the color balance tool forever and cannot get an
acurate color representation. That's when I found out that whenver
I do a proper custome WB, the color balance hardly need any
adjustment. Of course now that there is Color Mechanics and a few
other plugins that will aid in correction of white balance I guess
you can adjust the white balance most of the time.

However, even with Color Mechanics, I have encountered picture that
I took that is so bad that I can't correct it period. But those are
the very rare cases. For me, I don't like to loss any potentially
good shots, so I still do custom WB and use RAW all the time.

--
Phoenix
http://photo.vitsco.com

--
Frank

 

[Gary Berg]

I've been tempted to turn off/down the sharpening on my Pro 90 anyway (oops, now I let the cat out of the bag), but I've never really seen any problems. I generally run my images through Ultrasharpen Pro before I get them printed, which seems to do a good job of sharpening where there is detail and ignoring other areas.

Actually, I'm not even sure if RAW mode on my Pro 90 does 1024 colors or not.

exellent post, Gary. I agree that Raw mode adds nothing unless you
need to play with the exposure/curves...but then you need your
1024 colors / channel instead of 256.

I think that you will find no jpeg artifacts when saved as
superfine...even at 8x10 or larger.

You state in a later post that you use the mid-setting for
sharpness. I found that this setting introduced visible artifacts
at high-contrast interfaces. I've since turned it to -1 and have
been pleased with the results. I almost always do a little
unsharpening, but find that this mask does not work well as a "1
size fits all" filter as it's implimented in the camera...the
amount needed depends on the size and amount of the detail in the
pic.

anyway...thanks for the good, common sense post.

 

[Lei Xu]

I don't know exactly what problem you have w/ the RAW workflow. If you have specific questions post it or email me at [email protected].

I don't know if it helps any, my workflow is as follows:

1: Download the image using BreezeDownloader

2: Preview the image on BreezeBrowser and do first round selection. Delete any definitely bad ones.
3. Batch convert into TIFFs.

4. Open the TIFF using photoshop. Correct white balance using Color Mechanics if the white balance is off. I normally do custom WB, so rarely does a shot has wrong WB. Although sometimes I do forget.

5. Adjust level, contrast, color if necessary. Sharpen if necessary. G2 does a lot of in camera sharpening even at -1 setting. Defnitely a lot more than my D30. So I normally don't sharpen the picture unless they are going to prints.
6. Save, mass rename if necessary

--
Phoenix
http://photo.vitsco.com

 

[Mickey64564]

I think you're right...the G1 and Pro90 RAW files are only 8bit (256 colours/channel) while the G2 RAW files store 10bit (1024 colours per channel).

Actually, I'm not even sure if RAW mode on my Pro 90 does 1024
colors or not.

--
http://www.pbase.com/mooremwm
http://www.photosig.com/userphotos.php?id=7178

 

[Gary Berg]

I thought that might be the case, but according to Canon's web site and the review on Steve's Digicams the Pro 90 uses 10-bits.

I think you're right...the G1 and Pro90 RAW files are only 8bit
(256 colours/channel) while the G2 RAW files store 10bit (1024
colours per channel).

 

[Frank Mattia]

I don't know exactly what problem you have w/ the RAW workflow. If
you have specific questions post it or email me at
[email protected].

I don't know if it helps any, my workflow is as follows:

1: Download the image using BreezeDownloader
2: Preview the image on BreezeBrowser and do first round selection.
Delete any definitely bad ones.
3. Batch convert into TIFFs.

This where I have problems. What settings do you use??

Frank

4. Open the TIFF using photoshop. Correct white balance using Color
Mechanics if the white balance is off. I normally do custom WB, so
rarely does a shot has wrong WB. Although sometimes I do forget.
5. Adjust level, contrast, color if necessary. Sharpen if
necessary. G2 does a lot of in camera sharpening even at -1
setting. Defnitely a lot more than my D30. So I normally don't
sharpen the picture unless they are going to prints.
6. Save, mass rename if necessary

--
Phoenix
http://photo.vitsco.com

--
Frank

 

[Bob Williams]

The Pro90 and the G1 have a 10 bit AD, but whether or not the
RAW files actually contain 10 bit information is open to argument,
since they can not be saved as 16 bit output. Even if they do
contain the information, it is lost after the original RAW to tiff
conversion, as they have to be saved in 8 bit. You also can not
disable the false color processing in any program using the Canon
DLL's for these cameras. I seem to remember the G2 being listed
as having a 12 bit AD, and you can save the output in 16 bit mode,
and there is the option to disable false color.

I think you're right...the G1 and Pro90 RAW files are only 8bit
(256 colours/channel) while the G2 RAW files store 10bit (1024
colours per channel).

 

[Ladehaug]

I really enjoyed your photo galleries, actually the best I have seen on this forum so far! It was interesting reading what you can accomplish with the powershovel converter. Where can I get this converter?

One neat trick that can be accomplished with RAW in order to solve
this problem is converting to two separate TIFFs with different WB
settings (from the same RAW file) and compositing the two images in
Photoshop. Then just mask out the proper portions to end up with
an image that is correctly balanced for the two light temperatures.
I've only used this technique a couple of times, but it's worked
very well so far.

BTW, I'm a huge advocate for RAW. I love what can be accomplished
with the non-Canon RAW converters like Powershovel. Take a look
at these two links for some of the differences I've noticed between
processing RAW files with Canon's converter and Powershovel:

http://www.morpheusmultimedia.com/ps/powershovel_sample.html
http://www.morpheusmultimedia.com/ps/powershovel_res-colour.html

(I just posted a new sample in the resolution section of the second
link.)

Michael

 

[Lei Xu]

3. Batch convert into TIFFs.

This where I have problems. What settings do you use??

If you shoot custome WB, then I normally use everything "As Shot". I set in the camera -1 for Contast, Sharpness, and Saturation. I will adjust them manually when I got them open in PS. I find that -1 Contrast allows for more dynamic range so picture is less blown out. -1 Sharpness still sharpens a lot more than I like but it's the least amount of shparnen I can set to.

--
Phoenix
http://photo.vitsco.com

 

[Mickey64564]

Thanks for your kind words!

Please note that Powershovel only works with G2 and S40 RAW files, and that the output requires a lot of Photoshop work after the fact.

Here's a link to the action I use in Photoshop 6 (you'll need the full version) to process the Powershovel-generated TIFFs: http://www.morpheusmultimedia.com/PowerShovel_Developer_V3_4.atn

Here's where you'll find the latest version of Powershovel: http://campuscgi.princeton.edu/~atchouvi/psh.cgi

Michael

I really enjoyed your photo galleries, actually the best I have
seen on this forum so far! It was interesting reading what you can
accomplish with the powershovel converter. Where can I get this
converter?

http://www.pbase.com/mooremwm
http://www.photosig.com/userphotos.php?id=7178

 

[Frank Mattia]

Thanks;

I found that I was using too many variables, just setting as shot with no other corrections gives me better control.

Thanks again

Frank M

3. Batch convert into TIFFs.

This where I have problems. What settings do you use??

If you shoot custome WB, then I normally use everything "As Shot".
I set in the camera -1 for Contast, Sharpness, and Saturation. I
will adjust them manually when I got them open in PS. I find that
-1 Contrast allows for more dynamic range so picture is less blown
out. -1 Sharpness still sharpens a lot more than I like but it's
the least amount of shparnen I can set to.

--
Phoenix
http://photo.vitsco.com

--
Frank

 

[Gary Berg]

I was just checking, BreezeBrowser appears to give me an option to convert RAW files to 16-bit TIF. I haven't checked to see if it really does or not; I may check that later today.

The Pro90 and the G1 have a 10 bit AD, but whether or not the
RAW files actually contain 10 bit information is open to argument,
since they can not be saved as 16 bit output. Even if they do
contain the information, it is lost after the original RAW to tiff
conversion, as they have to be saved in 8 bit. You also can not
disable the false color processing in any program using the Canon
DLL's for these cameras. I seem to remember the G2 being listed
as having a 12 bit AD, and you can save the output in 16 bit mode,
and there is the option to disable false color.

 

[Gary Berg]

Having checked more over lunch, you are correct - G1/Pro 90 RAW files cannot be saved as 16-bit.

Sounds to me like RAW mode doesn't leave a lot left for the G1/Pro 90 user. Basically just adjustment of white balance, since contrast, sharpening, and such can be done just as well after the fact (set the camera to low for each of those and then shoot JPG).

The Pro90 and the G1 have a 10 bit AD, but whether or not the
RAW files actually contain 10 bit information is open to argument,
since they can not be saved as 16 bit output.