What record mode do you use?

Joined: 01 Feb 2006 Posts: 94 Location: Winona, MN

Hi...new to all this

What record mode do all of you prefer? I really have no idea what they mean or which ones the best.

Right now im currently shooting in RAW mode but there are so many? (JPEG, SQ, SHQ, TIFF etc.) if someone could please explain these to me that would help me out alot....Is it just the number of pixels used? And what is compression rates?

Anyway thanks alot
~Brian

Joined: 03 Dec 2005 Posts: 93 Location: California

continue in RAW.... this is the format that offers uncompressed files and the most image data

Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 2:28 am

But the other main advantage of RAW is that its well edited,
I think if you don't want to spend too much time in photoshop, stick with JPEG (this way your not skipping the in camera processing which could mean your 'out of the camera' shots will be better looking)

Premium Member Joined: 29 Oct 2004 Posts: 5758

aaronrx wrote:

continue in RAW.... this is the format that offers uncompressed files and the most image data

People who study 16 versus 8 bit imaging formally have not been able to prove an advantage of one versus the other. I'd suggest only shooting RAW if you want to make significant changes to your images. It's all I shoot, but frankly a lot of the time if I've taken the picture well it really doesn't benefit from having been shot in RAW.

As far as the compression goes, just save your images as highest quality JPEGs or TIFFs and you won't need to worry about it.

Again the advantage of RAW and 16-bit imaging is purely for images that will be significantly edited.

Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 9:41 am

I always shoot in RAW+SQ. Two real reasons for this. One is that Windows cannot read a .ORF file, or preview it I mean. The second reason is if I have to shoot 70 images for my photography class, I can drag them off onto a CD as a low quality shot, but you can definatly see what I have done. Just not good for printing.

Already RAW has saved my butt many times. The WB, the exposue and such really makes a difference when it looks good on the LCD but not on your monitor.

Joined: 25 Jan 2006 Posts: 53 Location: Cape Breton

I show raw+small, I think default in the 300d is raw+medium.

Premium Member Joined: 29 Oct 2004 Posts: 5758

AaronMD wrote:

I show raw+small, I think default in the 300d is raw+medium.

You can only do RAW alone in the 300D. You can't do RAW + Jpeg unless you install some firmware hack or another.

Joined: 14 Nov 2005 Posts: 18

drpablo74 wrote: "Again the advantage of RAW and 16-bit imaging is purely for images that will be significantly edited."

I wouldn't say a levels adjustment constitutes significant editing, yet even this alone can degrade the tonal range of an 8-bit image, whereas a 16-bit image is not damaged in this way. Just do a levels adjustment on an underexposed or 'flat' 8-bit image, then check it's histogram. You'll see 'gaps' across it (like a comb), indicating gaps with no continuous tone -- that can result in prints suffering from 'posterisation'. Do a levels adjustment on a 16-bit image (which you can reduce to 8-bit colour to reduce the filesize after editing)and in most cases the full tonal range will be maintained with no gaps. If the only editing you ever do is a levels or curves adjustment, a 16-bit image is still worthwhile.

Joined: 25 Jan 2006 Posts: 53 Location: Cape Breton

drpablo74 wrote:

AaronMD wrote:

I show raw+small, I think default in the 300d is raw+medium.

You can only do RAW alone in the 300D. You can't do RAW + Jpeg unless you install some firmware hack or another.

actually according to the 300d manual "raw" mode when selected in the menu embeds a medium fine jpeg by default
the hacked firmware allows you to change the size of said jpeg

Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 3:46 pm

RAW + Small Jpeg here
the Raw for final editing
and the Jpeg for print of proofs if needed A.S.A.P.

Premium Member Joined: 29 Oct 2004 Posts: 5758

pip22 wrote:

drpablo74 wrote: "Again the advantage of RAW and 16-bit imaging is purely for images that will be significantly edited."

I wouldn't say a levels adjustment constitutes significant editing, yet even this alone can degrade the tonal range of an 8-bit image, whereas a 16-bit image is not damaged in this way. Just do a levels adjustment on an underexposed or 'flat' 8-bit image, then check it's histogram. You'll see 'gaps' across it (like a comb), indicating gaps with no continuous tone -- that can result in prints suffering from 'posterisation'. Do a levels adjustment on a 16-bit image (which you can reduce to 8-bit colour to reduce the filesize after editing)and in most cases the full tonal range will be maintained with no gaps. If the only editing you ever do is a levels or curves adjustment, a 16-bit image is still worthwhile.

I know all this quite well, and in fact I'm writing a tonal adjustments article as we speak for the site admin here.

Your theory is all fine and accurate, and if you want you can go into the difference between 2 x 10^8 versus 2 x 10^16 tones, but you're still missing a huge point: demonstrable difference. At least as contended by Dan Margulis, who is probably the Yoda of Photoshop, there is nearly no scientific evidence that 16-bit editing alters the appearance of the final product except when major adjustments are made.

The fact is that posterization is not a histogram phenomenon. Posterization is the visual phenomenon that happens when the tone separation is sufficiently great that your eye can detect the differences in adjacent tones. With 65,536 tones/shades, your eye can in no way discriminate between two adjacent ones; and this remains true even when there are only 256, as in 8-bit imaging. Sure 16-bit images have more leeway for large adjustments, but that's my whole point -- that the difference between 16-bit and 8-bit imaging will not be visible unless you're making very large edits -- major shifts in tone or color.

Furthermore, it's not 256 tones alone in an RGB color image. It's 256x256x256, because there are 256 values in each of the channels, so in 8-bit mode you have just under 16.8 million ways in which a pixel can be defined. That's pretty big.

I'll grant you that if you're working in grayscale you're more likely to see posterization in 8-bit mode with the 256 shade scale (and this in fact argues for working in Lab mode rather than RGB).

If you're interested feel free to do the experiment for us. Show us an original image with no edits, then edit it in two ways: one working in 8-bit from the beginning, and two editing in 16-bit and converting to 8-bit at the very end. Make the exact same edits in the same order in both images, and tell us the exact numbers you use in the levels and curves for input and output as well as any other adjustment. Then show us the two final products as well as the final histograms. That way we can compare the significance of the difference.

Now don't get me wrong -- I exclusively shoot RAW, exclusively edit in 16-bit, I save all my in-process files as 16-bit TIFFs, and in fact I only work in ProPhoto RGB (by far the largest RGB color space -- it dwarfs Adobe RGB) and I work extensively in Lab mode. But this is because there's no downside to it, there may be an upside, and I'm editing with printing resolution in mind, so I want as much data in the image till the end. But at the same time I'm contending that this is more or less a placebo effect and my own experiments have failed to show much of a difference except when I'm making major changes (especially with the shadow/highlight tool).

Also keep in mind that RAW editing is a whole world different than 16-bit imaging. The RAW file has information content that blows away that of the simple 16-bit image. But most of that gets chucked in the conversion from RAW to the 16-bit Photoshop image. So the value in shooting RAW I'd say is about 10% 16-bit imaging and about 90% RAW editing.

Premium Member Joined: 29 Oct 2004 Posts: 5758

AaronMD wrote:

actually according to the 300d manual "raw" mode when selected in the menu embeds a medium fine jpeg by default
the hacked firmware allows you to change the size of said jpeg

Then where does the jpeg show up? I've been using a 300D for almost 2 years and when I shoot RAW and open up the CF card with my card reader there is only the RAW image and its sidecar there.

Joined: 25 Jan 2006 Posts: 53 Location: Cape Breton

drpablo74 wrote:

AaronMD wrote:

actually according to the 300d manual "raw" mode when selected in the menu embeds a medium fine jpeg by default
the hacked firmware allows you to change the size of said jpeg

Then where does the jpeg show up? I've been using a 300D for almost 2 years and when I shoot RAW and open up the CF card with my card reader there is only the RAW image and its sidecar there.

the jpeg file is actually embedded within the raw file itself. You can't just view whats on the cf card and view. It gets extracted when viewing through the canon software and also it is what you see when you preview images on camera too?

Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 9:29 pm

Odd, you have to select the Nikons to have both RAW and JPEG.

I shoot RAW 98% of the time. The other 2% could be split between TIFF and JPEG.

Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 10:05 pm

I use raw format most of the time. I switch to jpeg when needed to save space on my card (for example, when I've got space for ~15 RAW frames left on my last card at the end of a long day out, and a grizzly bear ambles up - yes, it happened).