Raw to Tiff or Jpeg

[boog]

I've got some pictures that I've PP in raw. I will run them through Noise Ninja and apply some USM. Is it better to save to 16 bit tiff, apply these two and then save to highest quality jpeg or go ahead and save to High quality jpeg and apply NN and USM. What's the best way to go about this without affecting picture quality? Thanks for help.

[XaiLo]

Typically you do not want to ever make changes to the original. Tiff is lossless but comes with the price tag of large file size. Jpeg is lossy of course but extremely smaller file sizes are available. With all that it just depends on what you're wanting to accomplish in your work flow. Optimally going the tiff route is your best though.

[boog]

Come on guys!! Throw a brother a bone. I'm no photoshop genius. I've seen threads on this, just can't find one. Thanks for your help.

[Bluedog]

Always work with the TIFF file and save the final results as a JPEG.

[forno]

Im a noob at all this too so I would love to know aswell

[cdifoto]

I don't work with tiffs at all. I go from RAW to JPEG.

[cwphoto]

I don't do much PP so I can't really help either.

My clients just specify what they want (TIFF typically for commercial work, JPEG typically for domestic work) and I just do whatever.

I never keep the TIFFs though - just too bloody big.

[ReF]

gathering opinions huh? i convert from raw to 16bit tiff, then do all PP (that hasn't already been done during RAW conversion) with that 16bit tiff.

[Sungrazer]

What's the minimum amount of post processing that must be done to RAW files for them to be viewable/printable? Can you simply just convert them to TIFFs and/or to JPEGs? Or do you need to do more?

[D Thompson]

What's the minimum amount of post processing that must be done to RAW files for them to be viewable/printable? Can you simply just convert them to TIFFs and/or to JPEGs? Or do you need to do more?
Yes, you can just convert them to TIFF or JPEG with no other processing. Do you need to do more? Not if you nailed the exposure, white balance, etc. I usually will tweak before I convert, open as 16 bit, and then fine tune exposure and clean up/clone if needed and lastly add some USM in CS2. I'll convert to 8bit and save in either TIFF or JPEG depending on circumstances.

[cdifoto]

What's the minimum amount of post processing that must be done to RAW files for them to be viewable/printable? Can you simply just convert them to TIFFs and/or to JPEGs? Or do you need to do more?

That's personal and highly subjective...and can vary from shot to shot.

[Sungrazer]

Yes, you can just convert them to TIFF or JPEG with no other processing. Do you need to do more? Not if you nailed the exposure, white balance, etc. I usually will tweak before I convert, open as 16 bit, and then fine tune exposure and clean up/clone if needed and lastly add some USM in CS2. I'll convert to 8bit and save in either TIFF or JPEG depending on circumstances.

Is there compression involved in converting to 8bit files? If so, is it lossless? Do you do it to get the file size smaller or for some other reason?

[Sungrazer]

That's personal and highly subjective...and can vary from shot to shot.

I guess my question is this. I don't have any PP experience. But I'd like to shoot in RAW for the day that I do. In the meantime, I'd simply want to get them in a format that I can view, print, share, etc. I'm wondering if it's good enough to just convert them to TIFF or JPEG or if I should take the extra step of doing some kind of automatic adjustment to them first.

[cwphoto]

Is there compression involved in converting to 8bit files? If so, is it lossless? Do you do it to get the file size smaller or for some other reason?

TIFF is uncompressed, JPEG isn't.

[D Thompson]

Is there compression involved in converting to 8bit files? If so, is it lossless? Do you do it to get the file size smaller or for some other reason?
TIFF is uncompressed, JPEG isn't.

cwphoto answered the first part.

I try to do as much as I can in 16 bit for the extra range. Add a few layers and the file can become huge, so yes, file size does play into it a certain amount. There are also some functions (CS2) that aren't available in 16 bit, so you have to convert to 8 bit to use them. Mostly, the places I have prints made will only accept an 8 bit file, TIFF or otherwise.

[Peleg]

I've got some pictures that I've PP in raw. I will run them through Noise Ninja and apply some USM. Is it better to save to 16 bit tiff, apply these two and then save to highest quality jpeg or go ahead and save to High quality jpeg and apply NN and USM. What's the best way to go about this without affecting picture quality? Thanks for help.

I shoot RAW then using either Raw Shooter Essential, my cameras Zoombrowser or Bibble to tweak the photos, in RAW, then I convert the picture to TIFF 16 bit to have it printed. Afterwards I delete the TIFF file and keep the original RAW file.

[Scott6]

I dont use tiff my self, jsut RAW and Jcrap.


BTW: I think Canon should include a nice 500gb HDD with there cameras lol.