Posted by Ryan Askren on November 30, 2009 at 11:36 AM
Hello,
I am struggling to keep images for my stock agency above the minimum size/resolution requirements. To be honest, I have not really been paying attention to the requirements due to the fact that I generally don't crop all that much and it is usually just to fix rotation problems. I need to keep my images at or above 30cm x 20cm - 300dpi. What is the easiest way to adjust this or make sure I have my images at the correct size? I am using PSE 7 but am interested in hearing what other software folks are using. I'm also shooting a D300 so I should be good on the megapixel side. Thank you in advanced.
Ryan
Posted by Richard Ditch on November 30, 2009 at 1:08 PM
30cm @ 300 dpi is 3543 pixels; 20cm is 2362 pixels. So those are your cropping lower bounds. That's only 8.4MP and well within the parameters of your D300. Perhaps your crops are more severe than you think - it is easy to misjudge such things.
You can set the display to show at the bottom of the image the pixel dimensions of any image open in PSE so be sure you've got that configured correctly and check it after you have cropped to see if you've gone too far.
Posted by Cliff Young on November 30, 2009 at 1:24 PM
I regularly submit images to Alamy and they ask for jpeg submissions from uncompressed 8bit TIFF files of between 48 and 55Mb. Initially I was using a D300 (now my backup) and my cropped TIFF files were always below this size and required interpolation (upsizing) to meet their requirements - see http://www.alamy.com/contributors/stock-photography-digital-cameras.asp Fortunately this is a fairly straightforward process in PSE.
Hope this helps Cliff
Posted by Ryan Askren on November 30, 2009 at 2:04 PM
Thanks guys,
I think you are right Richard! I must be cropping a lot more than I thought. I did forget to mention that I am shooting in JPEG and converting to TIFF. How will this affect my photos? I'm not sure I quite understand how to upsize but I will work on it and come back if I am still struggling. Thank you for the help!
Ryan
Posted by Kent Staubus on December 1, 2009 at 7:46 AM
Why not shoot NEF and convert to JPG Max using Nikon View NX? I usually shoot NEF, then convert to TIF using CS4, then use CS4 for any jpg conversions. I've not had any submission problems and am using D300.
Kent in SD
Posted by Austin Booth on December 1, 2009 at 5:30 PM
This is a little off topic but If you are shooting for stock you should be shooting raw instead of jpeg. When your camera converts the file to jpeg and discards the raw camera data you are losing a lot more data than you think. First of all once it is compressed as a jpeg it cannot be undone so converting it to an uncompressed TIFF file is pointless because it takes up more space and still has the same loss of file quality from the jpeg compression. Storage is getting cheaper and cheaper all the time, cards are getting dirt cheap and external hard drives as backup are going down in price too. If you are taking your photography seriously and shooting for stock you really should be shooting raw so that all the original uncompressed camera data is there. Besides being able to create full quality uncompressed tiffs as well as compressed jpegs there are many other benefits as well.
Here is a test that will show you the true benefit of raw shooting. Set your camera recording mode to the one that captures both a raw file and a jpeg file. Take a few shots and intentionally overexpose and underexpose a couple of them by 2 stops. Now in elements try and fix the exposure of the jpeg back to a properly exposed image, most likely it won't look too good because the jpeg file just doesn't have the data to bring everything back. Now open the raw file in your raw converter (probably Nikon View) and adjust the image back to a proper exposure, you should see that the raw file handles the exposure adjustment a lot better than the jpeg file did and looks closer to what an image that was properly exposed to begin with would look like. Some scenes work better than others but the raw file will always give you more leeway in mis-exposure than a jpeg will. Of course you should always try and get the exposure correct in the first place but I'm sure there have been times when you only get once chance at a shot and the camera didn't meter it correctly, the benefit of raw is that sometimes you can rescue those images which you would not be able to do with a jpeg. There are other benefits to raw as well but I feel that leeway in exposure is the most important.
Posted by Ryan Askren on December 2, 2009 at 10:45 AM
Ok, so now I am going to show my technical ignorance. I have often considered shooting RAW but have rarely had a photo that I have screwed up the exposure so bad that I have not been able to save it. The only photo software I have installed on my computer is PSE 7 and to my understanding it does not do RAW conversion, is that correct? I have also always worried about editing times. I may go out on a trip and fill up 24 GB of memory cards in a few days, how much more time does it take to convert and process RAW images than JPEG? Unless I am missing some other benefits of shooting RAW and vastly overestimate the time it takes to process RAW then I don't see how it could be more beneficial for me.
Posted by Ryan Askren on December 2, 2009 at 10:46 AM
By the way,
Thank you Richard! Those dimensions were exactly what I needed to know!
Posted by David Bostedo on December 2, 2009 at 11:13 AM
Ryan - PSE7 actually has a good raw converter built in - Adobe Camera Raw. I think it's close to, if not the same, version and features found in the full Photoshop.
As far as why you should shoot RAW, well, there are lots of reasons, but you seem well aware of the drawbacks. I will say that you can batch process RAW files to a large extent, so the actual processing time doesn't HAVE to be much more than you'd do now. You could simply focus on the few shots you really may want to have a RAW file for. Alternatively, you could shoot RAW + JPG for a while, and see if you find yourself wanting to use the RAW files. Try out a few conversions maybe and compare your results to the in-camera JPG. (A warning on that though : until you get used to converting the RAW files, you'll probably like the in-camera settings better, simply because they have more "pop" in terms of color and contrast. That tends to change the more RAW files you work with.)
Posted by Austin Booth on December 2, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Well first of all you automatically lose some quality with jpegs and you can never get it back, its not hugely noticeable but it could make or break a big print which is pushing the limits of your sensor due to jpeg artifacts. If you shoot jpeg then there is absolutely no reason to have a tiff file unless the stock agency requires it because they are assuming you shoot raw like all of the pros do. Besides the exposure compensation it allows you full control over white balance in post processing as well as noise reduction and a lot more. Also if you make a levels or curves adjustment with a 16 bit file created from the raw file there will be smoother gradations where as doing the same with an 8 bit jpeg file can cause banding. If a stock agency sees banding in the sky on one of your images they may not accept the image due to it not being technically perfect.
It honestly isn't that much more work using a raw file, for most images i make a couple quick adjustments which take 30 seconds and then i'm working on it in photoshop. You can also let the program choose which are the optimal settings like the camera would do when it created the jpeg and you will be working on the image in no time. The difference is that you will be working with a 16 bit file instead of an 8 bit jpeg. Working from a 16 bit file and then converting it to an 8 bit jpeg is always better than working from an 8 bit file from the start. I think you should set your camera to take both jpegs and raw the next few times you go out and just experiment with raw a little so you know from hands on experience what you are missing.
If I go out an get 24GB of images I may actually only end up getting 10-20 images out of those that I actually use so I cut down on my editing time by not bothering with the ones which aren't my very best. I only want to show my best work, I don't want to show my work that is good but not up to par with the rest of my work. If I show my best images along with some of them that are just good but not great then people see them and think "he has some really good images but some are just so so". If I show only my best images people think "wow all his images are really great!". It just makes your work look better as a whole when you show only the best of the best of your images. The pros shoot a lot of duds just like the rest of us but they don't show them because they know that if they do it it brings down the average quality of their body of work.
Posted by Ryan Askren on December 2, 2009 at 4:55 PM
Hey all,
First off, I realized that part of my reason why I thought all of my images were below the size requirements is because my resolution was higher than 300 dpi and thus when I went to check in resize by just selecting cm it was giving me lower number than what it would be at 300 dpi.
Secondly, I will give shooting in both RAW and JPEG again. I tried this two years ago and still like the ease and results of JPEG over RAW but that was a few years ago with different equipment than I have now. I also am sure I didn't give it much time and will be more patient this go around. I also have been keeping a higher percentage of my shots as I already have a contract with a stock agency and am trying to build up my volume of photos.
I'm also not sure if this makes a difference but I shoot almost entirely wildlife and seldom go out unless I think the light is going to be good. Because of this I keep a fairly high percentage of photos.
I'll get back to you on what I think in a week or two as both my D300 bodies are at Nikon right now and I only have my infrared D300 as of now. I am still a little apprehensive. I have been shooting for a couple of years now and have had photos published in several magazines and have not had any problems with image quality minus the size of my images.
Posted by David Bostedo on December 2, 2009 at 6:46 PM
Ryan - I don't know if your overall quality will go up, if you're just thinking about magazine prints. All in all, magazines could probably get by just fine on pretty crappy photos from a quality standpoint - the printing isn't that good. If that's your focus, then you're probably right - RAW might not buy you anything.
But my thinking is that if you can produce slightly better images on screen - especially when closely examined - then perhaps you'll get more images published or selected. I really don't know, and I've never sold a thing, but I do know that I've come to like RAW a lot for images I care about.
Discussion
11 repliesI am struggling to keep images for my stock agency above the minimum size/resolution requirements. To be honest, I have not really been paying attention to the requirements due to the fact that I generally don't crop all that much and it is usually just to fix rotation problems. I need to keep my images at or above 30cm x 20cm - 300dpi. What is the easiest way to adjust this or make sure I have my images at the correct size? I am using PSE 7 but am interested in hearing what other software folks are using. I'm also shooting a D300 so I should be good on the megapixel side. Thank you in advanced.
Ryan
You can set the display to show at the bottom of the image the pixel dimensions of any image open in PSE so be sure you've got that configured correctly and check it after you have cropped to see if you've gone too far.
Hope this helps
I think you are right Richard! I must be cropping a lot more than I thought. I did forget to mention that I am shooting in JPEG and converting to TIFF. How will this affect my photos? I'm not sure I quite understand how to upsize but I will work on it and come back if I am still struggling. Thank you for the help!
Ryan
Kent in SD
Here is a test that will show you the true benefit of raw shooting. Set your camera recording mode to the one that captures both a raw file and a jpeg file. Take a few shots and intentionally overexpose and underexpose a couple of them by 2 stops. Now in elements try and fix the exposure of the jpeg back to a properly exposed image, most likely it won't look too good because the jpeg file just doesn't have the data to bring everything back. Now open the raw file in your raw converter (probably Nikon View) and adjust the image back to a proper exposure, you should see that the raw file handles the exposure adjustment a lot better than the jpeg file did and looks closer to what an image that was properly exposed to begin with would look like. Some scenes work better than others but the raw file will always give you more leeway in mis-exposure than a jpeg will. Of course you should always try and get the exposure correct in the first place but I'm sure there have been times when you only get once chance at a shot and the camera didn't meter it correctly, the benefit of raw is that sometimes you can rescue those images which you would not be able to do with a jpeg. There are other benefits to raw as well but I feel that leeway in exposure is the most important.
Thank you Richard! Those dimensions were exactly what I needed to know!
As far as why you should shoot RAW, well, there are lots of reasons, but you seem well aware of the drawbacks. I will say that you can batch process RAW files to a large extent, so the actual processing time doesn't HAVE to be much more than you'd do now. You could simply focus on the few shots you really may want to have a RAW file for. Alternatively, you could shoot RAW + JPG for a while, and see if you find yourself wanting to use the RAW files. Try out a few conversions maybe and compare your results to the in-camera JPG. (A warning on that though : until you get used to converting the RAW files, you'll probably like the in-camera settings better, simply because they have more "pop" in terms of color and contrast. That tends to change the more RAW files you work with.)
It honestly isn't that much more work using a raw file, for most images i make a couple quick adjustments which take 30 seconds and then i'm working on it in photoshop. You can also let the program choose which are the optimal settings like the camera would do when it created the jpeg and you will be working on the image in no time. The difference is that you will be working with a 16 bit file instead of an 8 bit jpeg. Working from a 16 bit file and then converting it to an 8 bit jpeg is always better than working from an 8 bit file from the start. I think you should set your camera to take both jpegs and raw the next few times you go out and just experiment with raw a little so you know from hands on experience what you are missing.
If I go out an get 24GB of images I may actually only end up getting 10-20 images out of those that I actually use so I cut down on my editing time by not bothering with the ones which aren't my very best. I only want to show my best work, I don't want to show my work that is good but not up to par with the rest of my work. If I show my best images along with some of them that are just good but not great then people see them and think "he has some really good images but some are just so so". If I show only my best images people think "wow all his images are really great!". It just makes your work look better as a whole when you show only the best of the best of your images. The pros shoot a lot of duds just like the rest of us but they don't show them because they know that if they do it it brings down the average quality of their body of work.
First off, I realized that part of my reason why I thought all of my images were below the size requirements is because my resolution was higher than 300 dpi and thus when I went to check in resize by just selecting cm it was giving me lower number than what it would be at 300 dpi.
Secondly, I will give shooting in both RAW and JPEG again. I tried this two years ago and still like the ease and results of JPEG over RAW but that was a few years ago with different equipment than I have now. I also am sure I didn't give it much time and will be more patient this go around. I also have been keeping a higher percentage of my shots as I already have a contract with a stock agency and am trying to build up my volume of photos.
I'm also not sure if this makes a difference but I shoot almost entirely wildlife and seldom go out unless I think the light is going to be good. Because of this I keep a fairly high percentage of photos.
I'll get back to you on what I think in a week or two as both my D300 bodies are at Nikon right now and I only have my infrared D300 as of now. I am still a little apprehensive. I have been shooting for a couple of years now and have had photos published in several magazines and have not had any problems with image quality minus the size of my images.
But my thinking is that if you can produce slightly better images on screen - especially when closely examined - then perhaps you'll get more images published or selected. I really don't know, and I've never sold a thing, but I do know that I've come to like RAW a lot for images I care about.