RAW vs. TIF

[bitshird]

I was following a thread awhile back discussing the virtues of RAW vs. TIF format, OK heres what I get with an old Nikon Coolpix 5700, about 5 years old with RAW I only get an image file that is 7.65 MB but doesn't match the RGB workspace, it reads as Adobe RGB 1998 with 25608 x 1920 pixels
However when I process as Tif the file size is 14.1 MB nearly twice the size, But if I open the file in Photoshop CS as RAW all of the tweaking tool are open as well, including the light temperature, which means I don't have to go to Image-Adjustments and then each correction that I need because I have a crappy lighting set up, Actually hardly any, just 1 Halogen work light and a small incandescent work light about 18 inches over my pen, sidelighting with the Halogen at about 45 degrees from the right front.

This was shot RAW

This on was Tif

But gosh darned if you have to upload for internet,that means changing to JPEG and you wind up with a file that is whacked from 14.1 MB to 82.5 KB or else make someone wait 30 minutes for an image to open,
How bad does this background interfere with the pen, I shot a new pen and it’s on show off your pens,it uses a better background I think, criticize at will please, constructive suggestions also gladly encouraged, I’m trying to figure out how to do the most with what I have, Santa ain’t gonna help this year, [xx(][B)]

 

[gketell]

The idea with Raw is that it is every bit (both figuratively and literally) of information the camera can give you and with the right software you can easily adjust any aspect of that information, like changing from "daylight" to "fluorescent" lighting with one click, or changing the saturation and sharpness. It will be in whatever color space your camera took the picture (because that information is part of the picture information saved) and even that can be switched with "one click" in your editing software. Edits to raw files are non-destructive and are reversible simply by backing out the changes you have made.

Tiff is each and every bit of the photo saved in a bit mapped format but has none of the underlying info. It is just (literally) "this bit is 'red', this bit is 'blue' and this one is 'slight green'. Its benefit is that there is no compression. Its detriment is that it doesn't have any of the info about how the photo was originally taken. Edits are destructive and irreversible without further edits.

For a Tiff file, what your background is won't matter one bit in its final size because every pixel of the photo is individually detailed out. Nor for raw. But for JPEG... all jpegs have some amount of compression so constant backgrounds let it compress more efficiently so you get a smaller file size by saying "this pixel is just the same as the last one". And the higher the compression levels, the more lenient it is in deciding which pixels are "identical" to the ones beside it. ie low compression "dark grey" is "dark grey" but in high compression "dark grey" is "dark grey" plus "black" plus "lighter grey".

So why does your tiff look better than the raw? The OS has no intelligence so raw shows "as is" and needs some software with intelligence to interpret it for better display. But the tiff is made by some software that has the intelligence which reads the details in the raw file (including brightness and contrast) and built the tiff file from that creating each pixel as it should be according to the info in the raw file. This can be done in camera too where the camera provides the intelligence to build the tiff file.

So what to use, what to use. That depends on what you are planning to do with the picture in the end. If your only goal is to post it to the web, you have no reason for raw or tiff as long as you have everything set so your are capturing reality in you picture so just capture the picture in small/fine jpeg. But if you want to make large prints or edit the file to "refine" it, raw is your best bet but as you found you will then have to save it to small/fine jpeg to post it.


GK

 

[Fred]

Excellent advice given by GK. Thanks for an excellent explanation of a somewhat difficult to grasp procedure. []

 

[leehljp]

Greg: So what to use, what to use. That depends on what you are planning to do with the picture in the end. If your only goal is to post it to the web, you have no reason for raw or tiff as long as you have everything set so your are capturing reality in you picture so just capture the picture in small/fine jpeg.

Glad to hear someone with intelligence say this! Far too often I hear the purist spouting on the necessity for RAW for ALL. If it ain't needed, then it ain't needed! I have been using Photoshop since 1993 and love it. Can't do without it, but it is overkill for web photos in general. So is RAW.

 

[bitshird]

Greg, Thanks so much for that explanation, now it makes sense, I wasn't even able to get that sensible of an answer from the Graphics instructor at school, I guess if I need slides for a juried show, then shoot in RAW and massage as necessary, otherwise save space on my cards and use fine JPEG

 

[gketell]

Ken, if I were doing a juried show and needed accurate photos to get in I would spend the money to get a color accurate grey card and then I would do a custom white balance (especially since you have mixed lighting with none of it what your camera "knows") and pick my camera settings using that grey card. Then replace the card with the pen or pens and shoot. What your camera captures will be what you see. Raw or Tiff or JPEG, doesn't matter at that point because you captured reality.

Now, will you SEE reality on your monitor? Not necessarily because unless you have calibrated your monitor with something like the Huey (http://www.amazon.com/Pantone-Monit...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1197824221&sr=8-1) or the Spyder (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0Y2M9PY1WVXH6SKV0983) then your monitor most likely isn't displaying reality properly. And if you adjust your photo to "look right" on your monitor then send it to someone else whose monitor IS calibrated (or worse is out of calibration the wrong way) your picture will look really bad on-screen even though the data in the photo is correct.

Then if you want to PRINT reality....

Well, you get the idea. For things to look right you have to have calibrated each step in the path: capture, view, print. The easiest is capture (from camera, from scanner is tougher). Second easiest is display (Huey is great tool for less than $100). Print is tough because you have to calibrate to the printer, the ink and the paper (and if you are REALLY into it, to the display lighting and display distance of the photograph).

What do I do?: For web photos I use the grey card so I capture reality, I import the pictures into my software, crop the image to best show off the pen, save it, export it to the desktop at maximum size of 640x480 and "high quality" JPEG and upload it to the web site. All of a couple of minutes of work per picture. And if I got fancy and set up scripts I could do a bunch more without increasing the work but I haven't spent the time to do that yet.

I hope you find some of this useful.

GK

 

[Randy_]

 

[gerryr]

I don't bother with RAW for pen photos since in the end it will squished down to something less than 1Mb anyway, 100Kb for posting here. I discussed this at length with some pros and they said that if all you're doing is posting to the internet, RAW doesn't make sense, just shoot JPG at the highest image quality your camera will produce.