[mr cat]

Hi folks - got a query here...just got a canon 400D and I'm generally shooting in RAW mode and when I want to upload onto flickr I use the canon software 'Digital Photo professional' (DPP) to convert into .jpeg files...
I'm using the default output resolution of 350dpi (and everything else) - but some pics aren't as sharp as the RAw images...is this down to compression alone, or is there anything else I can do to tweak it so to speak..?

cheers

[silkstone]

Compression shouldn't affect sharpness very much.

What really matters is the actual size in pixels at which you want to display in flickr. You can then resize the original to suit. The 'native dpi' setting is not strictly relevant, but most monitors display at about 72dpi and it is normal to use this by default for web images. Also make sure that you convert to sRGB colourspace for the web (and any other applications that are not colourspace aware.)

I've not used DPP for ages and certainly not to resize for the web, but can I make a suggestion? If you convert to full-size TIFF or JPEG as you would normally, and then resize using the Faststone Image Viewer which is free and seems to do a pretty good job of resizing, as well as being a good browser and slideshow utility.

FastStone Image Viewer, Screen Capture, Photo Resizer ...

You can also use Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or any decent image editor for resizing. I believe that Photoshop has a 'Save for Web' function but this seems to strip out the EXIF data which you may want to keep.

[mr cat]

yeah, forgetting about files specifically for the web - I'm initially concerned about the lack of sharpness when I mearly convert files from raw to jpeg...

what can be done to overcome this vis dpp - or even cs2...but thats a pain as I have to convert the image into anoth raw format the cs2 can understand...

what do you lot on here do..??

[silkstone]

RAW is just the 'raw' sensor data, and it can be read by Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) which is a front end to Photoshop, although you need the version which supports your camera.

By default the images may be rather soft - you always need some sharpening with digital images to counteract the effect of the anti-aliasing filter in front of the sensor. The in-camera JPEG conversion has quite a bit of sharpening built in. You can set DPP to use one of the conversion styles available in the camera - 'Standard' has quite a bit of sharpening and should produce a good result although perhaps a bit too contrasty for some purposes. 'Neutral' has a flatter tone curve and less sharpening iirc.

I use Bibble to produce a full-size, low-compression JPEG, and then resize for the web using Faststone (Windows) or gThumb (Linux). Most people use Photoshop (with ACR) and/or Lightroom. The ideal sharpening does depend on the resolution, but I find that resizing from a final full-size TIFF or JPEG usually gives decent results.

[Markulous]

ALL dSLR images are soft when in-camera - part of the post processing should be to sharpen for it's destination (i.e. different for printing vs website)

I process RAW to TIF, save for printing/distribution, resize for web and then sharpen that image

[danpen]

What Markulous said, spot on.

cheers

Dan

[mr cat]

ok, I've been playing with DPP, converted it to 8 bit .tif (output resolution 100dpi) then sharpened the .tif version - but baring in mind that the DPP has 2 options - the RAw image adjustment and the RGB image adjustment...I'm only using the latter (obviously, with me no longer working on the raw image)...and yup, you've guessed it...! - it's not much better than the jpeg...

original pic (jpeg) here -



and modifed jpeg here -


shame that these aren't as sharp as the raw image tho...