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06/20/2007 02:08:12 PM · #1 |
Something I've noticed of late with my photographs submitted to DPC challenges is that the quality of my photographs from RAW to final jpeg display can be fairly poor. Meaning my photographs look really good in my RAW editor (Lightroom 1.0) and even when I export to photoshop CS2 as jpegs they look fine.
But when I reduce the size and then save it for the challenges my quality goes to poo.
My workflow goes something like this:
1) import RAW into Lightroom
2) make RAW adjustments (exposure, blacks, contrast, etc)
3) Export to CS2 as JPEG on maximum quality settings 300 dpi.
4) Make final color balance tweakages and levels
5) Reduce size to 630 pixels
6) Sharpen with Smart Sharpen (usually 10%-30% setting)
7) Add border
8) Save (usually reducing the quality to "6-8" setting for jpeg)
Somewhere along the way its losing a lot of quality. Would it be better to work in TIFF for the CS2 part and then the last step convert to a JPEG?
Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
Mark
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06/20/2007 02:37:07 PM · #2 |
Can't help with the Lightroom part of it, but can after bringinging it into CS2.
1) Make sure you go View, Proof setup,, Custom, and see that sRGB IEC61966-2.1 is selected, click OK. Then recheck View and see that Proof Colors is checked. That will make sure what you see on screen is what the final save will look like.
2) Reducing the size: In your Edit, Preferences, General, see if the Image Interpolation is set to Bicubic Sharper. If not, use the drop-down box and set that as your preference. That way when re sampling, it won't go soft. It is often better to reduce the image size in several smaller steps than one chunk, as is with any post-processing step - do it twice in smaller steps than one big step.
3) Sharpening. Many dozens of threads on this subject on this site. Each individual image will need it's own values, but generally speaking, to prevent halos from forming during sharpening, it's best if you go Image, Mode, Labcolor, then in the Layers & Channels on the right, select Channels, click on the Lightness Channel, and run your sharpening there. Once done, go back to Image, Mode, RGB Color to re-assemble it. Sometimes that isn't even necessary, and do your sharpening as normal, but then go to Edit, Fade Smart Sharpen and adjust the slider for the final tweak (an especially helpful step in any post-processing step to cut back something a bit form what was done)
4) Saving. Go File, Save for web. You will get a whole new window popup with some settings to make adjustments on. On the bottom left, just under the image, is the file size. This will be dependent on the jpeg quality settings on the right upper section. There's a drop down for Maximum, Very High, High, etc and to the right of that is a percentage drop-down. If you are saving for a challenge and need to get under the 150K limit, just above the Quality % drop-down is a triangle in a circle. Click on that, and then when you see the Optimize to File Size, select that, and in the next step, type in 150 in the box and click OK. That will take you back to the Save for Web window, and you can now see the file size under the image, as well as the quality percentage. Click Save on top, put it wherever and you're done. That will strip EXIF and non-image data from your image, thus compressing it less and yielding a higher quality image.
Give that a try and see if it helps.
Message edited by author 2007-06-20 14:39:27.
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06/20/2007 02:37:57 PM · #3 |
I export from ACR into Photoshop as (I assume) TIFF. Only thing that happens in raw is exposure changes and maybe white balance.
I resize to 1024x? first, sharpen, then the final drop down to 640.
...and then convert to jpeg as the very last step.
edit: I disgree with the bicubic sharper approach. I find the results to be very poor especially on images with any sort of smooth gradients. *shrug*
Message edited by author 2007-06-20 14:39:32. |
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06/20/2007 02:41:46 PM · #4 |
I make 2 or 3 step down at resize and a little USM in between
first 1800 pixels then 1200 and last 630
Works great
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06/20/2007 02:46:32 PM · #5 |
Wow, thanks for the tips!
I will definitely give this a whirl on my next batch of photographs. |
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