Shutterstock Photographer Forum :: View topic

lindaj · Joined: 28 Oct 2008 Posts: 176

Is it better (as in, a better quality picture) to take a picture in Tiff format and then convert it to a JPG in Photoshop....or just take it in a large JPG format to begin with.

If I take a TIFF...should I send it has a TIFF and let SS convert it, or should I convert it first...would this be considered "downsizing".

I'm assuming SS will accept TIFF's...Right?

hhltdave5 · Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:26 pm

What I do (I am sure others who do it differently will give their advice as well) is to shoot jpg large fine which is the largest you can shoot. When I edit the image I covert it to tiff to greatly reduce any loss of data to the image and when I am done I save it twice. First as a tiff (which I will use again if the image ever needs to be edited again) and as a jpg at the maximum image quality which is the one that I submit to the stock sites.

It makes no sense to upload a tiff image because Shutterstock converts the tiffs to jpgs so all you are doing is wasting your time with the longer download times.

supertramp · Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:44 pm

For the most part, Dave is right. Shoot jpg, and save 2 versions. BUT, if your camera can save as tif, then you have the advantage of no possible quality loss (not like it's a real big deal on the first compression). The disadvantage is that the files will be rather large on your card.

In my case, I shoot RAW and the files are about 7-10MB. And, like Dave, I save a tif and jpg at highest quality, of which the jpg goes off to SS.

Don't forget to store your images off the computer, like an external HD and/or DVD. Don't want to lose anything just in case your drive dies.

mcaryphoto · Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 3:41 pm

I shoot RAW and depending on whither an images requires editing in Photoshop I have the each image saved as RAW or a RAW file plus a PSD. As far a JPGs go when ever I need a JPG copy of RAW or PSD files its only a few mouse clicks away.

Mike

pharm · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 9406 Location: Never quite sure

chris56 · Joined: 28 Feb 2006 Posts: 729 Location: Stockholm, London

You should ALWAYS shoot in Raw! the Raw-converter will forward the image into PS as a Tif, where you do some of your PP. There as a final, last step you convert it to jpg for uploading.
All the time youre working in 16-bit and if you can avoid it: leave the sharpening alone since it does create artifacts, haze etc.

Chris

lindaj · Joined: 28 Oct 2008 Posts: 176

Thanks, you all were a help.....

jeffbanke · Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:09 am

I like Mike Cary shoot in RAW but with a twist!
My Nikon D300 allows me to shoot in RAW AND FINE,LARGE JPG at the same time.

Memory is cheap now, I just bought 2x 8GB Transcend CF cards for $22 each. I already have 2x 4GB's on which I can shoot about 125 RAW+JPG (fine, large) images each. I now have enough memory to shoot 750 images on 4 cards, without having to go to my 6x 1 Gig cards I use with the D100 and D70s.

Why do I do this? 90% of the time I can use the JPG file, but for those times when I didn't quite nail it, or when I want to build a composite from several images, I.E. and HDR or panoramic, I have the RAW files to play with.

RAW files are uncompressed in most SLR's, (some have the rather stupid ability to compress), they are smaller than TIFF's, are more modern than TIFF's (now about 20 years old), but are proprietary to the manufacturer. However this is not a problem unless you think that Canon or Nikon are going to go away.

Personally, I rarely mess with TIFF's because of the old technology and bloated file size, I prefer to save a worked upon master to a PSD file, again not a problem unless you believe that Adobe is going to go away.
Why? PSD files are smaller than TIFF's, and yet carry exactly the same amount of image data, just in the same way a RAW file does.
My workflow when using the NEF file is I save the NEF files to one folder, convert to PSD after I have worked on them, save to same folder, then convert to 8 bit and save a copy as a JPG to a different folder.
Finally, I save all three types of files to DVD and to a backup hard drive.

lindaj · Joined: 28 Oct 2008 Posts: 176

Thank you for that information you have been helpful.

jeffbanke · Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:01 pm

You are very welcome and glad you found the info useful!