Couple of newbie questions?

Admiral Huddy

Admiral Huddy

Admiral Huddy

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Firstly, when processing RAW files from Elements, what compression factor do you use or recommend? Setting 12 which is producing roughly 13MB seems a bit of an overkill? Should I stick to this or can I get away with lower?

Secondly, I need to print a few 8" x 6" prints for my assignment due in a few weeks. Can anyone recommended an online site that produces good quality prints they'd recommend? I've spend enough on equipment of late so a decent printer will have to wait.

Thanks
 
you can reduce the jpeg compression down even as far as 6 and still have a reasonable image. I have found that Photoshop seems to have a large jpg conversion output file. If you have / can get lightroom, you can set the limit on the output file size so you dictate what mb size the files are.

EDIT

With the photo you have been editing save it at a rate of 12 then save another copy as 6 and 8 and see if you can tell the differences between the photo quality
 
Last edited:
No difference as far as i can see. i guess the higher quality is for producing massive poster size prints. I'll compromise at setting 10 which is around 3MB.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
No difference as far as i can see. i guess the higher quality is for producing massive poster size prints. I'll compromise at setting 10 which is around 3MB.
Click to expand...

Seems like a sensible option.

For your prints try DSCL they are excellent value and have never disapointed me with their quality.
 
Remember to resize the image for the medium you're using it as well, that'll make a big impact on size. If you're printing you'll want the original resolution, for web use you can go much much small and still retain all the detail.

Example i just did, raw to jpg, both highest level quality:

original resolution = 8mb
resized to 800 on the long edge, 72dpi = 325k

The lower sized file is more than adequate for web / email use and can be a lot smaller.
 
I found JPEG quality set to below 10 produces banding on certain scenes where gradiants are observed (night sky, for example). The alternative is if the image is being shown online stick to mode 12 to keep the highest jpeg quality for the tonal range and just drop the resolution to something more web friendly. You end up with a photo that's a few hundred KB to a couple of MB in file size but the quality of the image remains at its highest.

If it's for local storage then it's a no brainer to stick with mode 12 highest resolution.

Photobox for printing. They also have near weekly deals with 25% off, 40% off etc.
 
You can have a 500KB jpeg at mode 12 from a dslr and a 1MB one from a P&S and the difference can be night and day :p
 
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