 Manny Valencia |
Poster files I like to shoot lots of sports. I have a Canon 20D. Is RAW the best way to shoot these pictures to be able to get the largest possible image such as posters? If I shoot in RAW and then save the file after editing to JPEG, will it still be a larger file than if I originally shot in JPEG mode. The reason I ask is because most places that I order prints from, don't accept RAW files.
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William Schuette |
Manny, unless your Canon is drastically different than my Nikon whether you shoot raw or jpeg should not affect the size of image as long as you are shooting at your max jpeg resolution. The advantage of raw is in additional color information or color bit depth. Bill
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Manny Valencia |
Thanks Bill, I was just curious because sometimes I have to order some large pictures 20x30 or posters, but I wasn't sure if I could get a sharper picture by doing things different. Manny
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William Schuette |
Apparent sharpness depends on a lot of things other than how fine the detail in the picture is. Saturation and contrast play a large role. For this reason I would suggest shooting in raw so you have more color data to make contrast and saturation adjustments. Also make sure you upsize you photo to the print size before you do any final sharpening. Generally, bigger prints require a higher radius in unsharp mask of about 2.4 to 2.8 or even a little higher. If you upsize a lot of photos you may want to consider a program such as Genuine Fractals or Blow Up. I use GF and have found that it works extremely well. Bill
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Manny Valencia |
Sorry Bill, I hope I don't sound dumb, but, that really sounded too high tech for me. I am assuming that there are programs out there that could enlarge my files without losing quality? I just made the switch to digital just over a year ago, and I am barely learning the specs. Although I kind of know what RAW is, I only shoot in that format because I figure that once I know what I am doing, I can go back and work on those files/image. Thanks for your input. Manny
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Manny Valencia |
Bill, I actually don't use Photoshop. I have it installed on my computer, but, I seem to use Elements more. I wouldn't even know where to start to enlarge it or change it in Photoshop. Manny
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Elements is made by those that make photoshop, so you have some of the same features. One being the ability to resize an image, and it should work the same way. I doubt you find any place to order enlargements from that accepts raw files. That's why you need your software that came with the camera, or another one like Phase One(among others) to convert the raw file to a file you can use like jpeg and tiff. Raw will give you the best place to start for big enlargements. You can do it also starting from your largest jpeg setting(L fine), but if you want the best results you can get, use raw.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Sharpening is something that elements should also have. He was saying that with common sized enlargements around 8x10, when you add the sharpening that's basically a part of doing digital, you set the pixel radius in the range below 2. But with making very big enlargements, he says it would be better to make the pixel radius setting also bigger.
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William Schuette |
Manny, the two programs I mentioned, Genuine Fractals and Blow Up, are both specifically for enlarging pictures without losing quality. You can enlarge in Elements. Go under the adjustments menu and select Image Size. If you shoot Raw, you will always need to make some adjustments or the picture will look very flat. When you shoot JPEG, the camera makes these adjustments for you. Unfortunately, once they are burned into the file you can only make limited adjustments thereafter. The most commom adjustments to a Raw file are Levels or Curves and Sharpening. If you are new to Raw, forget about Curves and use Levels which will allow you to adjust the relationships of the darkest, lightest and midpoint light values. You will find this under thew Image menu under Adjustments. For Sharpening, go under the Filter menu, select sharpening and then select Unsharp Mask. When selected, you will have three options to play with, amount, radius and threshold. A basic setting is amount 150%, radius, 1.8 and threshold 2. But depending on your picture, you may have to play with these. Remember to view the picture at 100% or actual pixels to see any negative effects of oversharpening such as little halos around light pixels. Also remember that the picture on your monitor will generally appear sharper than a print. Good luck. Bill
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