Digital Camera & Photoshop tips

[apocrypha]

Depends on the lab to some extent, but these days 99% will ask for jpegs. If a print lab doesn't specify DPI, colour profile and jpeg compression level then they're not offering a professional standard service and I wouldn't recommend them for anything except snaps.

Digital Negative is just a RAW file and you can't print directly from that - you need an associated .xml file at the very least and that's assuming the recipient has the same RAW conversion software as you.

TIFF's and other lossless-compression based formats are just not needed these days and are unwieldy to work with anyway. File sizes are too large and labs accepting TIFFs run the risk of receiving layered files that may not print correctly.

[K9]

I have used photobox.co.uk previously for some photos I needed to get printed back home while I was travelling in the US. They were pretty decent I thought, but frankly I haven't really shopped around at all, I just used them based on a recommendation.

What difference does the colour profile make? I can't remember which setting I opted for in lightroom, I know I futzed around with different ones and couldn't see any difference. I import .nef into Lightroom and then import into an uncompressed JPEG. I can't remember fiddling with DPI settings or colour profiles, beyond my brief experiments, so I assume they are set to the default.

Thanks for the notes on digital negative (what is the point of that format then?)/ Any advice on how to export things better?

[Merusk]

I'm not in the UK, but the US, so Alas. 

Color profile makes a huge difference because if they're mismatched what you see on screen won't be what's printed.   I've got a book with a nice chart that shows the differences, but here's a web page that shows how off you can be with a single color.

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/color_management.htm

If you take a look at the color spaces tab of that same site, they do an overlay that shows the difference between Adobe RGB and sRGB.  So, say your printer can only do sRGB and you're sending them ARGB jpgs.   There's going to be a large difference in color, particularly on the green & blue end of things.

[apocrypha]

DNG is an open RAW format, as opposed to the manufacturer-specific RAW formats that are proprietary and closed. It's an attempt by Adobe to create a kind of universal standard for RAW files. RAW conversion is a huge subject, about which many books are written, this is a good tutorial covering the basics.

Colour profile is very important, just as Merusk says. Of course you should have a calibrated monitor to make the most of it, and any pro lab will specify that too. If you don't have a calibrated monitor and/or you don't use the correct colour profile then you cannot tell what the colours you see on your monitor will look like when printed.

It's the difference between a pro lab and a consumer lab though - if all you want is snapshots then you can forget about most of that complicated stuff and just play it by ear. Get a few prints done, compare them to how they look on your monitor and tweak your files accordingly. If you want accurate and reproducible colour in your prints (which applies just as much to black & white prints too of course, they're printed on colour printers!) then you need to understand colour management I'm afraid.

[K9]

Thanks for the comments, I'm happy to learn, it's just knowing where to start that is (as ever) tricky. I'll read up on the links you guys have offered and do some trial runs I guess, and see how that goes.

[Merusk]

After reviewing some pics I took at the company picnic today, I just wanted to say that it's irritating that the more you learn the more you see flaws in the low-end equipment you start yourself off with.   While I'm not dissatisfied with this pic, I know it could have turned out so much better with a better piece of glass.


Mainly the fine detail feathers on the head. They're very blurry and there's some aberration going on at the green/white border.  It makes me sigh in a melancholy fashion to know it could be a lot better w/ a better body & lens.

[apocrypha]

After reviewing some pics I took at the company picnic today, I just wanted to say that it's irritating that the more you learn the more you see flaws in the low-end equipment you start yourself off with.   While I'm not dissatisfied with this pic, I know it could have turned out so much better with a better piece of glass.


Mainly the fine detail feathers on the head. They're very blurry and there's some aberration going on at the green/white border.  It makes me sigh in a melancholy fashion to know it could be a lot better w/ a better body & lens.

Still a nice shot, but I know what you mean. The EXIF says D60/70-300, is that right? Cos that's not exactly a cheapo point'n'shoot is it? But the diff between that and a £5k setup is clear, yeah. I still have my D80 and use it sometimes because I have a couple of DX lenses that I don't have FX equivalents for (the fisheye mainly). Hate using it, it feels horrible now. It's like getting back in a Ford Focus after driving a Ferrari - nothing wrong with the Focus, but.... 

[Merusk]

Thanks. I agree it's a nice shot but I *know* it could have been so much better with just a little more money in equipment.  The EXIF is correct, and the D60 is a nice camera body to have started with but I can already feel its limitations.  I've only been shooting with it two years and I'm itching to get up to a 7000 ASAP.

I don't want to upgrade to an FX sensor because of the really huge price jump, and I'm not a pro.  The 7k has a lot of features I'd love to have (and some sites even recommend it over the 300.)

Plus, I've noticed recently that the 70-300 VR Nikon lens just isn't as sharp as I'd like.  It's probably great for the price I paid ($500) but since playing with some other lenses my sister has (and the new 55mm I just got.) I can really see the lack of fine detail with it on certain things.   It's still great for buildings and other large-shaped objects, but feathers, fur and hair it falls down.

[K9]

I ordered a calibration print from photobox.co.uk, and having received it, I am a bit bothered by the fact that it doesn't seem to bear perfect relation to the digital version:


Specifically, while on my screen I can resolve pretty much every coloured box, on the print, the blues and greens seem to be over-saturated, or under contrasted (I can't tell which) and the seven brightest boxes in the bar all run together. The test photos look over-saturated to my eyes, and too contrasty. I have attached a photo (sorry for poor quality) of the test card below.


Would you say this is unsatisfactory?

[apocrypha]

It's kind of a backwards way of calibrating to adjust the monitor to match a print they provide you tbh. The problem is that monitor gamut is always going to be larger than the print gamut, i.e. the monitor can display a wider range of colours than any print can.

What are you using to edit your images? If you're using Photoshop then make sure you correctly convert your images to the correct printer profile (which photobox should supply) and check the images for out-of-gamut warnings before sending them to print. Correct colour management starts with setting your black & white points such that your image is restricted to the range of brightness that your final intended medium can display - and those will be different for web, screen, print, etc.

What you're seeing on that calibration image is the limitations of printing - it's just not possible to print all the colours that monitors can display, and never will be, unless we develop prints that emit their own light!

[K9]

I'm using Lightroom; you'll have to pardon my ignorance, but I don't know what you mean by gamut, could you explain please?

Thanks for the comments though, they are helpful and reassuring!

[apocrypha]

Gamut just means the range of colours that a given device or medium can display.

For instance:


The grey shape is the entire range of possible colours, the coloured triangle represents the gamut of the device in question (in that case a CRT monitor). It means that the monitor is physically incapable of showing colours outside of that triangle. Because monitors are light emitting they can show a much wider range of colours (i.e. have a larger gamut) than prints, since prints rely on reflected light - the inks only reflect certain wavelengths and absorb the rest.

I've not used Lightroom so I can't give you specific help I'm afraid, but there should be a setting or button somewhere (might look like a little yellow triangle with an ! in it) to show out-of-gamut parts of your image. The colour profile you assign to the image will tell Lightroom what the gamut is, which is why you need a printer profile from photobox.

Pain in the bum innit. 

[K9]

Ah, that makes sense; Lightroom does have a way to show all the unresolved white and black pixels, and I guess so for other colours too (I have only used the light/dark ones though). Thanks for the explanation, I will go ahead and get some prints done and see how they turn out.

[Merusk]

Something to remember about Lightroom vs Photoshop is LR is just a virtual Darkroom.  You're handling digital negatives and working towards prints, so there's only so much you can do.  I prefer it for the way I want to take photos, but if you want something that does more post work you might want to at least try the PS Elements trial.

Because of this approach LR only manages colors on export.  I don't think you can change the profile as it's being displayed within Lightroom itself, where it uses PhotoPro RGB to show you what's happening(A very wide gamut) Link  If you can change it, then I haven't found any place to do so or help to tell you how to do so.*

Lightroom help says that you can install custom color profiles to : WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color folder (Windows XP) and when you restart LR it will see them.

Photobox provides .icc profiles at these links:
Matte Profile
Glossy Profile

You can find these by searching in their site help for calibration.  However, their help seems to imply that they'd prefer you just send them digital pics with sRGB which they'll then strip out.  Since they're a consumer site they might do additional management on their end.. but given the print they sent you, probably not.  

What color profile were you using when you exported to .jpg in Lightroom?  Also; what color profile is your camera set to capture with?

* Because it displays only in ppRGB, I don't think LR will show you out of gamut colors. The only histogram options show you where there's blow-out or too much black (underexposure?) and which color value they occur in (In the Development Module, not Library).   Here's the Histogram from the Development Module of the following (unedited - exported as AdobeRGB) pic where the bird's blue feathers are underexposed and the yellow of its beak is almost blown-out.  Note the blue and yellow triangles.


Here's a link for a vid about managing colors in Lightoom.  I haven't watched it yet so I don't know how useful it is. http://lightroomkillertips.com/2008/video-lightroom-photoshop-and-color-spaces/

Ed : Oh hey.. from that same site, soft-proofing in Lightroom: http://lightroomkillertips.com/2008/video-lightroom-photoshop-and-color-spaces/

Oh.. I also found out today that Firefox lies when it displays colors. You have to turn-on color management within Firefox via a hidden setting.  Link

[Count Nerfedalot]

Interesting about Firefox, but that info was years old.  I don't know how version 4 handled it, but version 5 has Color Management turned ON by default.  The linked article's instructions for checking/changing the values through the about:config page still work if you want to check for yourself.  Just type "about:config" without the quotes in the address bar and be VERY careful what you change!

[K9]

Adobe previews their deblur tool

Pretty impressive.

[tgr]

From what I see, that's just a motion blur removal tool, not something that'll fix out of focus pictures.

[K9]

Um, that's the point? 

[Furiously]

So - to start my research, any suggestions for the wife for a good P&S? 

[Strazos]

Necro, sorry Trippy. 

So I finally had a decent trip upcountry which necessitated a camera...at which point I found that the little Olympus POS I have is going to be woefully insufficient for the foreseeable future. I need a big-boy camera.

I've been looking at the Nikon 1 V1 - it's pretty discrete, while still being flexible and robust enough to be worth upgrading to. The one thing I dislike is the need to buy the auxiliary flash module.

Anyone have any particular thoughts on the camera, or more worthwhile alternatives?

[apocrypha]

The reviews and discussions I've seen of the Nikon mirrorless offerings (V-1 and J-1) all say that that handling isn't great, they're not very good in low light and there's very little option for manual control.

The Sony Alpha NEX-7 seems to be getting much better reviews, although it's not as beginner-friendly from what I read. I've used an earlier model (NEX-C3 maybe?) for an afternoon and was more impressed than I thought I would be, although it was SLOW! Autofocus & menus were sluggish, but I'd hope that wasn't the case with more recent ones.

Personally I'm very much in two minds about the mirrorless compacts. On the one hand they do offer better image quality than standard compacts, but they're also a lot more expensive to get into since you also have to buy seperate lenses. They also don't offer the kind of control that I would like as a photographer. To my mind the price differential between a mirrorless and a full DSLR isn't enough to justify the loss of everything else that comes with a DSLR. They are significantly smaller though which is no bad thing!

[K9]

I got to play with a V1 while on holiday over Christmas. I'll echo what most of apoc says in that it doesn't offer the same control as a DSLR, that said it does offer a lot more power than a point-and-shoot, and it is remarkably portable compared to a DSLR. Its size is probably its strongest feature in contrast with say a D3100. For a casual photographer I think the picture quality is pretty good, and the settings are versatile without being overwhelming. If I had the money I might get a mirrorless compact for days when I don't want to carry a bulky DSLR around, but I can live without one.

[Khaldun]

I'm still trying to figure out what I want for a high-quality low-light-friendly close-shot lens that's good for capturing spontaneous shots on my Nikon. I have a good prime lens with no AF for portraits or posed photos, but the lack of AF means it's just no good for trying to snap an interior action shot or anything else spontaneous.

[Merusk]

I'm still trying to figure out what I want for a high-quality low-light-friendly close-shot lens that's good for capturing spontaneous shots on my Nikon. I have a good prime lens with no AF for portraits or posed photos, but the lack of AF means it's just no good for trying to snap an interior action shot or anything else spontaneous.

I bought this 50mm Nikkor lens. when it was on sale last year around June.  It rocks and at 1.4 takes fantastic low-light shots.

Trying to decide on a nice lens to take with me to Disney.  I've got the standard D60 10-55 and my 70-300 but those both have their own issues and I dislike swapping.  Anyone got a recommendation on an 18-~200 they really like and isn't junk?

[Mosesandstick]

50 can be tight indoors. I'd recommend looking at the Nikkor 35 1.8 or one of the Sigma Primes.

There's also a new Nikkor 50 1.8 that will AF, I'm guessing you have a D3100?

[K9]

I have the 50mm Nikkor, it's a good value-for-money lens imo, I get a lot of use out of it.

[Khaldun]

D3100, yup.

(My non-AF is very similar otherwise to the 50mm. It takes great pictures, pretty good in low-light, just for anything unposed, I get too many blurry pictures because someone moves just a little before the snap.

[Strazos]

Heh, keep in mind I've never bought a camera for myself (usually use someone's castoff) so most of what ya'll are talking about is unintelligible to me. 

[apocrypha]

Sorry, I do tend to go off on one 

The Nikon V-1 and J-1 are what they call "mirrorless compacts" - they are a new breed of camera that has a large sensor (which is good), interchangable lenses (good for image quality but expensive) and an electronic viewfinder rather than looking through the actual lens like an SLR (which are much bigger cameras). They're a nice middle ground between a small-sensor compact camera and a big, heavy SLR.

My advice would be to go into a camera shop and ask to have a play with a few different cameras in your price range. Take a few photos in the shop - how do the various cameras feel in your hands? Do you find they focus quickly enough for you? Do you like the layout of the main controls? Do you like the size and weight of the camera.

For most people I'd say there's not important differences in image quality between similarly-priced cameras in a given class, so ergonomics and personal preference are more important.

[Strazos]

I'll have to see, but I don't think there are camera shops in this country. Or at least, if there are, the prices are going to be inflated.

[Merusk]

Well, let's have you explain what you mean by "Big Boy Camera" then.

Do you want something that's pure point and shoot or something you can fiddle with settings on?

Do you want to be purchasing lenses or just work with what the camera comes with?
               If you're ok with buying lenses, do you want to use them with your next camera?

Is size of the camera a concern for you?  - Many people think anything they can't stick in a pocket is "too big."  Meanwhile I carry a camera bag any time I'm out and think it's fine but crosses the line into hassle when I take the tripod.  I've also seen pros with 3-5 cameras hanging off of themselves and a tripod who probably think I'm under-equipped while I think they're crazy.

Do you want the camera to be able to take video in addition to stills?

Lastly: Why were you attracted to the V1 you were looking at?  Probably an amalgam of the above but it never hurts to ask.

[Strazos]

 - I'm OK with fiddling with settings, but I'm not going to do it every other shot if I can so help it.
 - I'm OK with a few lenses, though I don't think I need to go supernuts here.
     - Again, OK with lenses, but since this will be my first real camera and I'm not super serious about the "art" of it, I don't anticipate buying another for quite some time. At which point, I may not be super crushed if the lenses don't transfer.
 - Size is a concern. SLRs have more a "ROB ME!" factor than "smaller" cameras, which is a concern when you're in a place with high petty crime. I'd be OK with a small camera bag, maybe, though I'd prefer something I can put in a day bag along with some other things and not worry too much about it.
 - Video - Yes.

I was attracted to the V1 on a friend's recommendation, as I wanted something a bit robust without the fanciness and size of a true SLR. I basically just want something that will take good pictures, and that could perhaps grow with me a bit as my camera skills increase. The ability to run around with a small body and maybe 2 lenses is attractive. The festival I posted in the other thread really exposed my need for a real camera - fast AF with quick shutter times and burst capabilities would have been much appreciated, as my current takes close to 2 seconds to actually capture a pic after focus. And clearly I wasn't able to pan with the targets quite as much as I would have liked, or I didn't have the zoom/resolution I needed, or the AF was inadequate/slow.

If it helps, budget is somewhere around ~$1200 I think - it's not like I have much else to burn cash on, so I might as well treat myself to something nice.

[apocrypha]

A mirrorless does sound like a good fit for you then.

However, all the reviews I've seen seem to think that the Sony NEX-5n or NEX-7 (which is only just out though, might be hard to get for a few weeks) are better than the Nikon V-1 or J-1 in many ways. However, the Nikons do get praise for very fast autofocus and the mad 60fps burst mode on the V-1 - as long as you have good light!

[Furiously]

Well... Amazon dropped the price on the Nikon 7100, so I went ahead and ordered one... I'll give some opinions tomorrow.

[schild]

Girlfriend wants a Sony NEX-C3 since we're traveling so much this year.

Does this shit ever go on sale? Same price at Amazon, Fry's, and Sony Style.