7 Steps for Editing Your Photos

In article . com,
wrote:


Who the hell do you think you are - the Photo Answer Man?

Who the hell do you think you are - the Photo Answer Man?

Well that cannot be considered to an intelligent comment- at least the
original poster shows a modicum of common sense, and more experience of
photoprocessing than your bland response shows you have.
Thanks to the original poster for the advice.

In article . com,
says...

When editing digital photos, it helps to have a standard workflow.
Knowing the right order to apply your editing tools helps you get the
best results.
1. Edit in Lossless Format
Some file formats, such as JPEG, lose quality every time you save an
edit. This is called a "lossy" format. If you are performing a long
series of edits, you may actually make things worse despite your
efforts. The opposite type of format is "lossless." With a lossless
format, such as TIFF, no quality is lost when you make edits.

2. The Initial Clean-Up
Some edits, such as cleaning up noise and correcting lens distortions,
are best performed at the beginning so you do not exaggerate them
during later steps. There was no noise in the above example, so this
step was not necessary.

[SNIP]

Gary, thanks for taking the time to compile and post this, as it might help
many just starting into digital image processing.

I have one problem with the order, however. I base this on the type of work
that I do (advertising/architectural), so it might not make a difference with
others' images. If one will be manipulating the image(s) with Clone/Healing (
Photoshop), then the noise reduction should come, just before the Sharpening,
as you want any textures that appear in the image, to be treated the same, so
nothing new is introduced to a image after, say treatment with NeatImage. I do
my Adjustment Layers for Color, Sat, Hue, etc. first, then make those
inactive, while I Clone, whatever, then re-activate Adjustment Layers, Save_As
PSD for final, Flatten and run NeatImage, then Sharpen, and finally Size for
output. Other than that quibble, I like what you have written.



------------------------------------------
Gary Hendricks
http://www.basic-digital-photography.com

Hunt

wrote:
When editing digital photos, it helps to have a standard workflow.
Knowing the right order to apply your editing tools helps you get the
best results.

Thanks. Those are nice tips. I usually hate to sit in front of a
computer and work on PS but with the ability to shoot raw, I might just
give it a try.

- Siddhartha

In message JPeHd.2007$CI6.1746@trnddc06,
"RSD99" wrote:

GIF is a lossy format ... and very poor for photographs.

GIF is not a "lossy format" per se. GIF is a palette-based format, and
used in that context, is not lossy. It is only lossy when used beyond
its scope; to convey true-color images with more than 256 colors. It
can convey greyscale photos quite well, as they only need 256 shades.
--


John P Sheehy

In article , says...
I have one problem with the order, however. I base this on the type of work
that I do (advertising/architectural), so it might not make a difference with
others' images. If one will be manipulating the image(s) with Clone/Healing (
Photoshop), then the noise reduction should come, just before the Sharpening,
as you want any textures that appear in the image, to be treated the same, so
nothing new is introduced to a image after, say treatment with NeatImage. I do
my Adjustment Layers for Color, Sat, Hue, etc. first, then make those
inactive, while I Clone, whatever, then re-activate Adjustment Layers, Save_As
PSD for final, Flatten and run NeatImage, then Sharpen, and finally Size for
output. Other than that quibble, I like what you have written.

But maybe Neat-Image works better *before* the image is manipulated,
because then the noise reduction is done on an image which still looks
like the noise profile?? I have done it both ways and have not seen a
big difference, but I don't reduce noise very agressively and I'm no pro.

When used with photos ... which actually **is** the subject of this
discussion ... GIF **is** a lossy format.

It converts everything to a fixed pallet of 256 colors ... which may (or
may NOT) have 256 shades of gray ... depending on how it is saved, and from
what program it is saved. If it is saved using a "Fixed Pallet" (such as
"The Windows Pallet, for example), it may have only 6 to 9 shades of gray!

It is definitely ***NOT*** recommended, under any circumstances, for
photographic images.




wrote in message
...
In message JPeHd.2007$CI6.1746@trnddc06,
"RSD99" wrote:

GIF is not a "lossy format" per se. GIF is a palette-based format, and
used in that context, is not lossy. It is only lossy when used beyond
its scope; to convey true-color images with more than 256 colors. It
can convey greyscale photos quite well, as they only need 256 shades.
--


John P Sheehy

"Roger N. Clark" posted:
"...
Gif is not a lossy format. It is a lossless compression format.
But it is limited to 256 colors, so it loses color accuracy
...."

With all due respects ... you can't have it both ways.

While it is true that the GIF file format does not have any "compression
losses" ... it does have the losses associated with converting a 24 bit,
three color image (16+ million colors) to a palleted 8-bit (256 color)
indexed color image.

IMHO: Loss of color depth ... is still a loss. Therefore, the GIF format is
a lossy storage format.








"Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark)" wrote in
message ...
RSD99 wrote:

GIF is a lossy format ... and very poor for photographs.

Convert them to something like TIFF (using LZW compression, if you
like),
PhotoShop PSD, or PNG that is *not* a lossy format.

Do *not* "convert them back to JPEG" for storing ... the above
referenced
file types are all around better for use, archiving or long term
storage.

Gif is not a lossy format. It is a lossless compression format.
But it is limited to 256 colors, so it loses color accuracy
(not necessarily gamut) (perhaps this is what you meant by lossy.
Gif should only be used for simple graphics, like line art.

Roger

RSD99 wrote:

IMHO: Loss of color depth ... is still a loss. Therefore, the GIF
format is
a lossy storage format.

Then your opinion isn't useful. It is commonly understood that "lossy"
etc is applied to the encoder -- not to whatever processing system is
in front of it. Anything else makes the whole distinction worthless.
Is a PPM "lossy" because it is 8-bit encoded gamma data that originally
came from (say) 16 bit linear information? Can we blame a GIF decoder
for being "lossy" when it faithfully reproduces the encoder input,
exactly?

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:

I agree. But I would argue that any editing in 8-bit mode is
lossy: intensity lossy. The first step I do is:
A) convert raw to 16-bit tif (with any necessary color
balance, contrast), or
B) convert 8-bit jpeg to 16-bit tif


No argument with this, but why, when you later say you work in PS, do
you convert into TIFF?

--
John McWilliams