RAW to Jpeg to (2nd) Jpeg = Quality Drop?

[JayPee]

Two hours ago (around midnight) I came on here to ask a quick question... It's now 2am and I've just finished reading ALL 12 pages of Susan's "Hobby" thread... Jeeez - thanks Susan!

To my question...

I'm just beginning work on a new portfolio website - got the functionals 'functioning' (almost) - and now racing to load some content... and I suspect taking one too many shortcuts.

I ALWAYS shoot in RAW - PP in Photoshop - publish Jpegs... generally leaving them at 280 ppi. Because of time constraints on this particular workflow (and the size of images in the Portfolio) I found that most of the time I only needed a minor crop, reduction to 72 ppi, watermark layer and FTP 'up' to the server... and I romped through the first 70 odd images - mainly using previously created (280 ppi) Jpegs.

I then began to notice a quality drop. Now I don't think it's the reduction from 280 ppi to 72 ppi - so it must be... WHAT?

Over to my learned friends - and I suspect I've got some embarrassing replies ahead...

'Half cooked' website is: http://JRPix.com.au

[fletch]

Where are you noticing the quality issue?

Is it when viewed on your browser? I noticed you used HTML to downsize your images on the front page to 180 x 260 from 860 x 596. If you use internet explorer to view this pic in this way it will suffer in quality due to the way IE downsizes images. Try viewing in firefox and it should look better. Ideally you should use images the size you want and then link to a larger version if necessary.

[JayPee]

G'day Fletch...
The thumbnails and the 'medium' (blog post) images are auto-generated within the folio plug-in (I'm not a coder) - all images are uploaded at (around) 860 x 596 px. The folio does do a little re-sizing or scaling outside those dimensions - but I'm comparing the folio (large) images with those I've posted on Flickr - or created for other use...
Thanks for helping
JP

[midnightsoiree]

If you're using a nikon, i suggest that you keep on raw unless you're such a cheapskate when when it comes to data and disk space.

There is not much quality drop from raw to jpeg. Let's say, around 3% difference, IMO.

[DannyF1966]

Having had a quick look at the site I think it's loading up the full size images on the front page and then resizing them on the fly, which could well be where the drop in quality is coming from.

Right-clicking on one of the thumbnails on the front page and looking at the properties, it says: im000021a.jpg&h=180&w=260&zc=1 - which tells me it's loading the full size pic and then squeezing it down to 260*180. The image size is 87k, which is another indication that it's resizing on the fly.

The only solutions I can think of are to find out if the Folioblogger plugin for Wordpress will use a dedicated thumbnail if provided with one, in which case you can create your own thumbnails and upload them separately, and the other solution would be to find a different plugin for Wordpress that would use dedicated thumbnails.

[k9mom]

I see a very noticeable amount of loss when I convert from RAW to JPEG (Canon CR-2 to highest quality JPEG), even on just the first generation JPEG. In my Canon utility viewer/editor, Digital Photo Professional, one can readily see the loss of sharpness when viewing the original RAW file next to the converted JPEG, even in the thumbnail view.

I usually prefer to convert to PNG, as it is a lossless format (much like TIFF, but PNG file sizes is nowhere near as big as TIFFs). The only problem with converting to PNG is you lose the embedded EXIF data. If retaining the EXIF data is of no concern for you, you might try PNG format instead of JPEG to preserve the high quality imagery of the original RAW file.

[Jim Bryant]

So guess what happens....each time you compress a jpeg, you get loss of quality. You need to save it at it's highest quality setting of 12 in photoshop, so you don't experience any quality loss.

[dakwegmo]

Originally Posted by Jim Bryant

So guess what happens....each time you compress a jpeg, you get loss of quality. You need to save it at it's highest quality setting of 12 in photoshop, so you don't experience any quality loss.

^^ What he said.

If your web application is processing the photo in any way, including resizing, it's adding another level of compression to the image. It's best to avoid having another application do the manipulation, so save it at the size you intend to display it on the web. If you can't avoid it save your photos at the lowest possible jpg compression (highest quality) prior to uploading, to allow for the web app's compression.

Also, check to see if your application has a setting to change the jpg's output quality.If you can increase the jpg output quality, it will minimize the loss of quality from additional compression.

[wulf]

Since you've got a Flickr account, you could host the images there. They could still be displayed on your own portfolio site. One of the main reasons I have chosen to pay for a pro account on Flickr is that they do an excellent job of creating web-friendly versions of each image at a range of sizes.

Wulf

[JayPee]

And - wouldn't you know it - Jim was right! Again.

I'm not concerned with the auto-generation of the thumbnails - they are just that - thumbnails... The main pix are uploaded at 860 x 596 - and I was taking shortcuts - using 2nd and 3rd generation jpegs (created for Flickr - Wulf) and cropping down to the new size.

It would have been nice if I had discovered it (woken up) earlier... I now have to strip down 80 images and start again...
Bugger!

Again - thanks every one.
Baka des ne... Jim?