Saturday, April 28, 2018

JPEG vs RAW an update

Looking through my most popular post on this blog I was surprise to see how much an very old post on JPEG vs RAW was still rating. This was a personal opinion of the difference I had experienced on my Pentax K20D and Canon 1100D and why had choose to shot both jpeg+RAW and still do.

Some of the reasons have changed a little …

 BUT If you don’t have a way to post process a RAW file, you are likely to find it flat and boring (software companies and specifically adobe) tended to render a Raw file to the same overall recipe which in theory suits all situations, but in practice leaves images looking flat and grey/bland. No worries if you have the knowledge and software (eg lightroom) to take the image further you could create a miracle. However a lot of people get stuck there, and they see other competitive software doing a much better rendering up front (eg Luminar, OnOne, Capture and even Corel Aftershot Pro)

On the other hand modern camera come with a lot of settings ( like higher contrast, vivid colour and/or filters) that can enhanced your photo for various picture types and lighting scenarios and the Jpeg image it prepares (ie what you see on the back of the camera will be in part post processed and could look great). This same jpeg thumbnail is written into the RAW file.  You may notice as you first load a raw files it looks good but then pales to beige as the software tries to re-render the photo to a suit all situations.

I believe this is the issue that is really behind adobe’s moving the camera profiles (and picture type filters) from deep down in camera calibrations up to prime position in the develop panel. Its all just about a better starting rendering of a Raw file.

Moral of the story: If you don’t have the fancy post processing software or don’t have the time to finesse each photo perhaps you are better just sticking with jpeg your have nicer looking photos. If you want the best of both worlds shot jpeg+RAW like me.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Building a Loose Leaf Sketchbook (for my camera bag)

http://apimageo.tumblr.com/post/172777515721/building-a-loose-leaf-sketchbook-for-my-camera

I'm not only revitalizing this blog. I always liked the idea of a behind the scenes place to post ideas and works in progress stuff, and I originally felt tumblr was a better place to do that than in here. So there is stuff going on over there occasionally but it will be reposted here as a embedded item

Monday, April 09, 2018

Hmmm …another Adobe Marketing Ploy?

 imageI got an email today telling me my adobe cloud trial was up, and I needed to join now (and it small print the price being $28.59 per month (yes per month!( Trouble is I made the choice long ago not to get involved in the adobe subscriptions. I still have lightroom 4.4 and Photoshop Elements6.0 (on an older computer and don’t use. So How come my trial was up?

Then I remember I had long ago downloaded bridge (a free version) and a few weeks ago I had reloaded it to see if it was touch screen freindly (ie bei9ng able to finger scroll through thumbnails etc.) It was so I forgot about it BUT apparently it upgraded itself to the CC version (still touch screen unfriendly) and because I have an Adobe ID signed me up without my having to accept anything I can’t even remeber the upgrade.

This type of hard sell and stealth marketing really puts me off considering and adobe products in the future and the sear5ch to be able to replace lightroom has now become more focused.

#Adobe #FAIL


PS My creativity hasn’t ended

Saturday, April 07, 2018

Thanks for waiting ….

New glasses have bought a new clearer vision

Its been a long time since I last posted in here, and there are many small contributions as to why. It was never my intent to stop, just circumstance that discourage or  distracted me. Perhaps now is a good time to get back into the saddle because I see so much that is an emperors new clothes bubble surround discussions of photography related issues on-line. Lots of hype but the more I look it is just more of the same, a lot more… copycat more… more sameness… same voice… same message… even same composition & colours… on and on more…

Then there the whole issue of what life is like aside social media clouds. Actually its pretty good, even when you don’t know/realize you have been ghost banned, or algorithmically ignored.

So there no time like to present to take a deep breath and focus on the idea of being an independent voice and following my original aim of just investigation and writing about things related to digital photography and importantly not necessarily trying to follow the crowd.