abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

This came up in another thread. Wat size do you recommend and why?

I have a Canon 80D and use the smallest size which is about 14 M. I distribute most of my pictures on the Internet or by email. Since the viewers use more mobile devices than desktops, I send 1 or 2 M jpg's. For prints, I send tiff's which run between 20 and 40 M for prints up to 8x10. The 14 M raw is entirely adequate, especially since I usually do not have to crop a lot.

If you expect to crop a lot, then do shoot larger. Examples would be wildlife and sports.

Your thoughts.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

For screens, cropping to 1920x1080 pixels with minimum RAW to JPEG compression should work well. File size in megabits will vary with the content of the image and is not important.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Thank you for this topic, Bob. Re-sizing based on intended use is an important part of editing workflow!

My two cameras are 16 MP (megapixels). They produce raw files ranging from 13.5 mb (megabytes) to just over 17. I do not have the option for a different size raw other than if I use fewer pixels (change aspect ratio from 4:3 to 3:2 for example).

I learned recently that the most popular email hosts (Google, Yahoo, Outlook, AOL, Spectrum) allow 20 to 25 mb total attachments, but I think your suggestion for 1 - 2 mb for everyday emailing is spot-on. I'm spoiled with a high speed internet connection, but some still don't have that luxury

dannac Loc: 60 miles SW of New Orleans

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

In my limited use of PS Elements, "cropping" means removing a part of the image itself, whereas "resizing" is what you do to remove pixels, which in turn, makes the file size (MB) change.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Linda,

I don't do it often. My thought for emailing to screens with minimum file size comes in 3 parts. First set the viewing "crop" ratio to match the target screen. Most screens are now 16x9. This is the composition part and removes part of the image. Second, is "resizing" in the process of making a copy as a emailable JPEG. Since most screens are 1920x1080, the "long edge" resizing should be 1920 pixels. By chance the viewer/recipient of the email has a 4K screen, maybe the long edge should be 3840 pixels. Third is the compression choice. With today's internet speeds, my choice leans toward no compression, maximum quality.

As an example, I shot a wild horse in RAW (with a Panasonic M4/3 camera) and the file size was 23 MB. Using Lightroom I set the crop to match my 1920x1080 screen, selected Export and set the long edge to 1920 and quality to 100%. The JPEG is 1,798 KB. On my screen, my eyes see no loss of quality. The JPEG has a pixel for pixel match to the screen. I've controlled what the viewer sees, maximized the quality for their screen and minimized the file size.

(Download)

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Thanks very much, Bill. Cropping to fit a viewing screen's aspect is also covered by ChgCanon here.

Changing the aspect (which affects composition) for viewing online wouldn't normally be my goal, though I've noticed that vertical photos look much better in thumbnails on UHH because of the max. 600-pixel width, but apparent unlimited height

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

The reason to shoot in raw is to allow more latitude in post processing. If edits are limited to cropping I would not bother with raw.

Raw allows you to recover blown highlights, to bring out more detail in shadows and enhance the image often easier and beyond what a camera provided JPG can do.

In normal processing, a JPG file is created from a raw file, the raw file is never changed and remains as it came from the camera, the resulting JPG can be printed, published or emailed, and can be reduced in size substantially from the original raw file size.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Resizing is also making larger. As a practical matter, you do not have to resize. Just crop to the desired aspect ratio. All printers have rip software that will resize the image to fit the output.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

I have not printed my own photos since b&w wet darkroom circa 1990 But I've learned a lot about cropping and aspect ratio since going digital and uploading to sites like Costco for printing, beginning back in 2009.

ppi and pixels not having physical size is still a bit beyond my grasp, however. For more about that vs. dpi, see burkphoto's explanation today here.

Thanks much!

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Let me add a little here. When the camera takes the picture, it stores the raw data. We then apply a camera-specific profile to it so that we can see it in something like LR. When we share the edited file either over the Internet or send it to a printer, we put into a platform-free, universal format. Such are jpg, tiff and others.

The camera can also process the raw file to a jpg. In doing so, that process discards valuable information contained in the raw file. Once done, the camera discards the raw data.

In editing raw's, you use the same tools as for jpg. Programs like LR transform a raw file into editable without your noticing anything. For these reasons and because storage is cheap, I urge people to shoot raw.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

bleirer

By shooting M raw you only get 14 megapixels compared to the 24 from regular raw. The file size for m raw is about 23 mb, but for regular raw about 28 megabytes. So you throw away 10 million pixels to save ahout 6 megabytes of storage space. Storage is cheap. Use all the pixels.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

"Changing the aspect (which affects composition) for viewing online wouldn't normally be my goal,"

A long time ago I forced myself to try to compose for 8x10 prints. Now that so many view on 16x19 screens, I try to compose the original shot for that. Everything we watch on TV that is produced for TV is composed that way.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

The size of the raw file depends upon the camera. My point is that unless you are making large prints, probably greater than 11x14, the small raw may be all you need. If you have a large raw, then you are losing a lot of pixels when you make the appropriate size jpg. In that case, why even shoot large?

Sure, storage is cheap but by waste it for unneeded pixels?