How to get the best out of your JPEGs

[John 2]

Came cross this article today and in view of the debate that surrounded Brian's recent post, I thought it might be of interest. It will certain be of interest to anyone just getting started with a camera. The nice thing about the article is that after a fairly general introduction, the article provides a series of dedicated links to sub articles covering each major camera manufacturer's systems.

http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk...r-jpegs-102964

[Shadowman]

Came cross this article today and in view of the debate that surrounded Brian's recent post, I thought it might be of interest. It will certain be of interest to anyone just getting started with a camera. The nice thing about the article is that after a fairly general introduction, the article provides a series of dedicated links to sub articles covering each major camera manufacturer's systems.

http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk...r-jpegs-102964

Thanks for the link, will check out later. Wonder upfront if there was discussion on ISO settings (base) as prerequisite to "best of".

[shreds]

I would have thought that most members here are in advance of what the article details. Not a lot more than you might find in the manual for those who bother to read them.

CiC tutorials are probably more detailed and explanatory.

[rpcrowe]

I have to say this with a grin but, "How to get the best out of your JPEGs" is to shoot RAW to begin with

[Manfred M]

I'd have to agree with Ian; definitely oversimplified. The article, including the camera specific stuff was pretty basic and I find he concentrates on the wrong things. When I shoot jpeg, the two things I pay most attention to are the parameters that get "baked in" like colour space and white balance. The other things can be pulled out in post, if required.

[John 2]

Come on Guys. We describe ourselves as a learning forum and not everyone is advanced or has the necessary software or capability to use it as some others.

[george013]

Come on Guys. We describe ourselves as a learning forum and not everyone is advanced or has the necessary software or capability to use it as some others.

I won't show it again, but in that diagram of mine the jpg is shown as an disk file of the compressed RGB raster image. Your question should go back to : how to get best out of my RGB raster image. In that same diagram you will see it comes from the in-camera converter and the used settings. That last one is the only part you can influence. That brings back the question to: how do I use the camera. And RTFM. The shown links don't tell me more.

George

[Mike Buckley]

Come on Guys. We describe ourselves as a learning forum and not everyone is advanced or has the necessary software or capability to use it as some others.

Exactly.

[DanK]

are the parameters that get "baked in" like colour space and white balance.

Other things are too, like sharpening and noise reduction.

I glanced at the Canon section. I don't see anything wrong with it, other than that it is incomplete. It's just a much abbreviated version of what you would get from the manual. It doesn't even describe how the picture styles differ, and it focuses much of its limited space on what I don't consider to be the core, highlight tone priority and auto lighting optimizer. It adds a useful note that you might want to go into the menus to dial down sharpening and noise reduction.

I think my bottom line would be to tell a newbie who wants to shoot jpeg to read the manual, even if s/he starts with this.

[Manfred M]

Come on Guys. We describe ourselves as a learning forum and not everyone is advanced or has the necessary software or capability to use it as some others.

While I agree with the direction of your comment, I still think we need to look at the content of what was presented in the articles.

The one thing I have mentioned a few times before is that when I took some of my college photography courses a few years ago now, is how the prof required us to shoot jpeg rather than raw. As part of the process, he did cover some of the important aspects of how to do this.

As I continue to be a jpeg (plus raw) shooter, I will repeat what I said in #5, Andy Westlake, in my experience, largely covers the wrong aspects on how to get a good jpeg image out of the camera. It's almost as if someone who generally shoots raw, was asked to write an article on getting a good jpeg out of the camera. He's done that (in a simplified way), but missed some of the most important aspects of the subject he is writing about.

[Mike Buckley]

The articles are far easier for me to read and comprehend than the camera manuals. I would never recommend that a newbie learn the stuff explained in the articles by instead reading the camera manual. Moreover, unlike a lot I see on the Internet, I didn't notice anything that is factually incorrect in them.

[John 2]

Help! I only posted the link - just in case - someone found it useful. I wasn't expecting a critique. I don't necessarily disagree with any of the criticisms levelled at the basic nature of its content but that doesn't preclude that in the spirit of being a learning forum, someone might appreciate being made aware of it.

[miatab]

Grumpy Driver, with your expertise and experience, why don't you write an article on "getting a good jpeg out of the camera." I for one would be intensely interested in reading/learning from you. I would find great value in what you have to say about "some of the most important aspects of the subject he is writing about." This is a learning forum, and as I am a jpeg only shooter with interest in producing better jpegs, I would be a sincere reader learner.

[Manfred M]

Ken - I have been thinking of doing this. I'll post it if I do get around to it.

The main issue in writing about jpegs is that the custom settings and controls are both camera manufacturer and camera model specific, so that puts limits what can easily be covered. If you look at the Westlake article, he does a high level generic section and then dives into a manufacturer specific page for that reason.

[rpcrowe]

There are, of course, valid arguments for shooting JPEG in camera...

1. Probably the most valid argument is when you have a camera that only shoots JPEG. Then the choice is JPEG or no pictures.

2. Right up there with lacking a camera that captures RAW, is not having post production capabilities...

3. Immediacy is another very valid reason - such as a sports or news photographer who needs to upload his images to an editor wirelessly.

4. Some cameras do not have the capability to shoot bursts of any viable number of images in RAW

5. JPEG saves memory space which was more of an issue when memory was quite expensive.

6. Finally, a good reason to shoot JPEG is just that the photographer wants to and knows or thinks that he/she can produce very decent images using the JPEG route.

I almost never shoot JPEG and I don't feel slowed down by shooting RAW. In fact, when I work with most JPEG images, I use the Photoshop CC Camera RAW Filter...

[Manfred M]

Richard - you have hinted at it, but have never quite come out and said it.

Use of jpeg is fine when the quality is "good enough". If one is posting to the internet, where the lowest common denominator is sRGB and jpeg and low quality screen output, so long as the image is good enough, one does not have to go through the exercise of editing a 14-bit, wide gamut image image. Let's remember jpegs can be edited too and as long as one has a reasonably high quality image, there won't be any noticeable artifacts, as long as the image is not "pushed too hard" in PP.

If one is printing the image on a wide gamut printer, then one might wish to work from raw data.

[Mike Buckley]

Today people are making Daguerreotypes, Tintypes, Ambrotypes and the like and we're discussing when the use of JPEGs is good enough? The topic of the the thread is how to get the best out of our JPEGs, not whether or not we should be shooting JPEGs.

[Manfred M]

Today people are making Daguerreotypes, Tintypes, Ambrotypes and the like and we're discussing when the use of JPEGs is good enough? The topic of the the thread is how to get the best out of our JPEGs, not whether or not we should be shooting JPEGs.

Mike - let me clarify what I mean by "good enough".

In your photographic work, you are not shooting with either a Hasselblad or a Phase One camera. You are still producing excellent images that you post here, so the camera you are using is obviously "good enough". In fact, I suspect that one of these large medium format cameras might even be problematic to use in your small, cramped studio, so your choice of tools, which likely have better looking specs than your camera and lenses, might in fact not be appropriate in your shooting environment.

That is really where I am heading with this thought. From a technical standpoint, an experienced photographer who is knowledgeable in using post-processing tools, including a raw convertor should be able to a superior image to a jpeg that comes straight out of the camera (SOOC). In some circumstances, the results will be visibly better to the observer, but in others, say a sRGB jpeg that was posted on the internet, I'm willing to bet that these differences will not be noticeable, i.e. the jpeg will be "good enough", even though a technically superior image might have been used to generate it.

Conversely, someone who has not mastered the intricacies of post processing will likely produce an image from the raw data that is not as good as the SOOC jpeg. I know that was the case when I first started. I had to learn all about colour spaces, white balance, noise reduction, sharpening, contrast, black and white point, etc.

[Mike Buckley]

I understand everything you're explaining, Manfred. The issue for me is that it doesn't pertain to the topic of the thread.

I'm thinking of a guy who walks into a bar, meets his photographer friends and shows them a basic article about how to make decent JPEGs from the camera. Then all of his friends completely ignore the article and instead tell him not to shoot JPEGs unless there are specific reasons to do so. Or someone asking which wine is going to taste best with the pizza and everyone ends up telling him to drink beer. It makes no sense to me.

[JBW]

I understand everything you're explaining, Manfred. The issue for me is that it doesn't pertain to the topic of the thread.

I'm thinking of a guy who walks into a bar, meets his photographer friends and shows them a basic article about how to make decent JPEGs from the camera. Then all of his friends completely ignore the article and instead tell him not to shoot JPEGs unless there are specific reasons to do so. Or someone asking which wine is going to taste best with the pizza and everyone ends up telling him to drink beer. It makes no sense to me.

Mike, first things first. You're right. This thread was directed to people who for reasons that make sense to them want to shoot in JPEG.

Perhaps it will help to remember that humans, (yes photographers are human), are tribal. In photography the JPEG clan is simply not going to get along with the RAW clan. Which is possibly why this thread has quickly dissolved into why you should shoot in RAW or JPEG.