Any particular order using PS.?

[KeithT]

As an asside, I have started to shoot raw only and not have the jpeg at all. I have done this because on ballance I never even looked at the jpegs when I downloaded the files to my computer and just deleted them. As I prefer to make my jpegs from the finished tiff file I started to wonder why I used up card space shooting them side by side. That isn't for everyone though and if anyone can tell me why I should shoot jpegs too I would like to hear their argument.

Sharpening should really be the last job of the processing stage. My preferred way to sharpen for printing is to convert the image to Lab colour, sellect the Lightness channel and then Unsharp Mask to taste. Apparently, it is less destructive sharpening in this mode.

[gtirman]

I'll give that great tip a try Keith.....appreciated.

cheers :}

[GeoffWessex]

Slightly connected to this discussion..... I've been having some very heated discussions with die-hard film users in the last couple of weeks. I won't be swayed by their arguments (unless they're talking about at least Medium Format film) and usually just stick with.....

a. "You can't change White Balance frame by frame with film - you get daylight or tungsten, end of." -- with Digital you can do that.

b. "You can't change ISO/ASA with film half way through - or if you do you'll be unable to develop half of it." - with Digital you can do that.

And I've now added....

c. "With film negatives, you develop them. That's it. You can't go back and develop them again to correct any errors. They're done. Finished." - "But with Raw, you can develop it any number of times, making different versions or just correcting anything you missed! Ansel Adams, for one, would have loved it, even though he was always dismissive of modern technology and would have got somebody else to do it."


So there's a bit of ammunition for you next time you meet that boring man in the beige cardigan down at the camera club!

[amk1977]

Originally Posted by GeoffWessex

So there's a bit of ammunition for you next time you meet that boring man in the beige cardigan down at the camera club!

You could aways just smack him over the head with a monopd

[KeithT]

Well, I went digital around 4.5 years ago and have never looked back. A mate of mine stuck with film and swore his Leica R9 was the only camera he ever needed, along with his Leica prime optics. We had many an argument about b/w film vs. digital conversion and it almost came to blows at time. I have 6 16x20 b/w prints on my lounge wall that he had to admit he couldn't tell whether they were film based or digital. He said no more about it. 3 months ago he emailed me and said he had mothballed his Leica R9 and convinced his long suffering wife that he needed to go digital. He bought a Canon 7d and top of the range EFS lens and has now repented on his previous statements and agrees he can't tell the difference between his b/w conversions and those he did with film. I never rubbed it in, but I did give a little smug grin when he wasn't looking. Now I can't stop him talking about digital, his getting used to Photoshop, and the ability to process his raw films in the way he did his negatives. Film is dead, well at least the 35mm format. Medium format will take a bit longer to put down, but it won't last forever. Now large format will be another thing altogether, but even that will have its day sooner or later.

[gtirman]

My PSD's printed out wonderfully at my local print shop [its RAW only from now on ! ] but one thing confuses me.....whilst editing my pics i noticed that on the right hand side of PS [CS3 ] it was showing 8 bit color.
That is the same as JPEG.....am i doing something wrong? I tried switching to 16 bit but it wouldnt allow me and defaulted to 8 bit.
Any tips?

[AndyStevens]

Glad you got some nice prints. You should be able to get 16 or 32 bit PSD files - have you tried the Image > Mode menu and selected 16/32 bit? I've looked in my works CS3 and my own CS5 and both have this option

[KeithT]

As most print shops still use 8 bit printing I wouldn't worry about bit depth, although it is nice to use a higher bit depth when processing the raw. If you ask your printer whether it would improve the image by increasing print files to 16 bit he will give you the lowdown on what you shou be using. I only use PSD files for saving files with layers intact, otherwise I use tiff for printing. I stopped using aRGB too because if the print shop doesn't handle the larger colour gamut with their print process what's the point of sweating your guts out to perfect the colour range?

Here is a very short video opinion on the subject. Excuse the intrusive add on the front of the video.

http://www.5min.com/Video/16-bit-and...ints-148102440