JPEG/TIFF/RAW query

[kirstycathrine]

Hi there,

This is probably a bit of a stupid question, but I'll ask anyway...

I currently own a Canon 450d, and tend to avoid taking photos in RAW. There are two reasons for this a) I rarely have time for large amounts of photos editing and b) don't currently have anything like Photoshop.

I recently came back from S.Africa with loads of lovey photos including one I was keen to enter in a competition. However, most competitions demand RAW images, or TIFF at the very least. The images come onto my comp as JPEGs though. Does this mean I won't be able to enter anything since my original files are the wrong format?

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Kirsty

[Lancashire Lad]

I would think that most if not all photo editing software should be able to convert your JPEG images to TIFF. (You don't need to buy anything as expensive as full blown Photoshop).

For example, in PaintshopPro, it is just a matter of opening the JPEG, and doing a "Save As", choosing TIFF as the file format option for the save.

Obviously, at that same time, you could also resize the image and increase resolution etc., along with any other post camera editing that you may witsh to do.

There is a free editing software package named GIMP, which I believe has a very comprehensive feature set. It might be worth giving that a try.

Regards,
Mike.

[Jim Ford]

Faststone Image Viewer is an excellent all-round image viewer that will save a JPEG as a TIFF. It also has some basic editing functions - and is free.

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

I can't be bothered with competitions (and am not good enough anyway!) because they seem to have such strange rules. I can't remember B&W film competitions asking for the negs in the past!

Jim

[Geoff F]

Which photo editing software do you have?

You may have Canon DPP or one of the earlier Zoombrowser programmes supplied with your camera.

While these are a bit on the basic side by today's standards they are perfectly adequate for simple editing like you require. Just Export the photo and set the required format.

But the complicated part is what image size/resolution (pixels per inch) is required for competition entries? This is where you will have to do a bit of thinking. Some competitions have very exact requirements.

But, in reality, once you understand the basic principles it is easy to do. Just enter the appropriate sizes and click the button.

[glsammy]

Originally Posted by Jim Ford

I can't be bothered with competitions (and am not good enough anyway!) because they seem to have such strange rules. I can't remember B&W film competitions asking for the negs in the past!

Jim

My sentiments entirely Jim. It's a good enough excuse to use anyway when my shots aren't up to it.

[agooday]

I always shoot in raw, the main downside being the file sizes involved.

I can't be bothered to spend much time on the photo after it is taken, so have a very simple work flow.

Use Canon DPP (should have a copy with your camera), wait for all images to load into preview, highlight them all and shift Q to quickly skip through and mark those I want to work on, with a 1 2 or 3. Then image by image, normally just tweak white balance, contrast, sharpness and then save a jpeg. Doesn't take long at all. My best pics need the least tweaking, but the options for whitebalance, contrast, highlight and shadow available in raw are invaluable in saving a few shots from the bin.

[pressld2]

Originally Posted by kirstycathrine

most competitions demand RAW images, or TIFF at the very least. The images come onto my comp as JPEGs though. Does this mean I won't be able to enter anything since my original files are the wrong format?

Most competitions say that they reserve the right to request the original raw files but then usually have a footnote that says something along the lines of "or the original jpeg if you don't shoot in raw". How they think they can tell that the supplied jpeg is the original is beyond me, but that's a whole other issue.

Dave P.

[bripriuk]

Most competitions say that they reserve the right to request the original raw files but then usually have a footnote that says something along the lines of "or the original jpeg if you don't shoot in raw". How they think they can tell that the supplied jpeg is the original is beyond me, but that's a whole other issue.

I think most competitions will ask for your sequence of shots if you shoot jpg - you have to include those taken just before and after the entered shot. This way they can be reasonably certain that the shot is genuine.

Brian

[Paul mabbott]

Going slightly off track but when I had a Canon it was possible to save pictures as bitmaps (.BMP). I tended to that option because files were scaleable, unlike JPG, but it wasn't such a pfaff as RAW. Might be worth checking?

[bripriuk]

Paul

.BMP files were uncompressed bitmap files, similar to Tiffs and with the same file size. The format is not used now because it did not include colour space info or metadata. Tiffs are not used in cameras because the file size is much larger than raw or jpegs.
There is actually no visible difference in quality between a maximum quality jpeg and a tiff, image degradation only occurs when the jpeg is opened in an editing program and re-saved.

Brian