Adobe Camera Raw query

[tinmice]

Hi,

Just started to take my photography a little more seriously and am trying out shooting in RAW to allow a bit more flexibility in post production.

I'm using ACR to make a few minor adjustments to most of the photos I take, and filtering out the ones to play with properly CS4. When I've save the files to .jpg they are unexpectedly - small (~1.8 - 2 MB), even when set to the highest quality. This has thrown me a little as I was expecting something at least around 4MB, is this normal?

Any other pointers using ACR would be welcome as well.

Thanks,
Ben

[LeeR]

You certainly have a problem somewhere.My camera RAW files are about 2.5 times larger than the highest setting jpeg images. I'd start by looking at the settings on the camera. Most DSLRs allow you to choose a size for your output images, though in most cases shooting RAW automatically goes to the highest rating. I don't know if you can do a small RAW on your camera (this is one of those rare cases where EXIF info would be helpful) but I would start there.
The only other thing I can think of is that in CS4 you may be given an option for how much compression you want when you convert to jpeg. I'm using CS3 and there is no option for that though there is a dialogue box called "Camera Raw Preferences."

[Samanax]

Originally Posted by tinmice

I'm using ACR to make a few minor adjustments to most of the photos I take, and filtering out the ones to play with properly CS4. When I've save the files to .jpg they are unexpectedly - small (~1.8 - 2 MB), even when set to the highest quality. This has thrown me a little as I was expecting something at least around 4MB, is this normal?

Are you saving your images to JPEG from ACR or from CS4?

How big are the RAW files to begin with?

Have you reduced the image size at all?

Are you saving to JPEG through the "Save For Web" option in CS4?

[tinmice]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I'm shooting in .NEF from the camera, I don't think you can specify a size, I think they are just thrown out at the maximum 3500x2800 (ish), if you can specify a size then I'll have it on the largest (just don't have my camera in front of me at the moment).

I'm copying and moving the files using Bridge, chucking the many that I don't want and then opening them in ACR to convert them to .jpg after a small amount of mucking around. I was then going to open CS4 to play with the odd few that are good enough, I haven't done this yet though.

I can't find any relevant settings in ACR to change the compression or size until you click on the 'save as' button on the bottom right when you'd want to export them. At this point I have chosen the maximum quality.

The original .NEF was ~9MB, with the outputted .jpg at 1.88MB, the size of the output is as expected at 3872x2592.

I also tried exporting it as a .TIFF to make sure that worked, and it produced a massive 28MB file, which I think is about right.

Thanks guys.
Ben

[Samanax]

I just did a test with a 11MB DNG file and converted it to JPEG with ACR 4.6 (I use CS3) and the file size came out to 1.5MB. I didn't do any adjustments to the image, just the conversion.

I then used LR2 and converted the same image with no adjustments and the file size ended up at 5MB.

The 2 JPEGs don't look the same. The dimensions are the same but the colors are slightly different.

[tinmice]

I take it from that then that it is better to use LR rather than ACR to convert to .jpg?

How do you go about getting yours from RAW to jpg? I'm not even sure if I'm going about it in the best manner!

Ben

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by tinmice

I take it from that then that it is better to use LR rather than ACR to convert to .jpg?

How do you go about getting yours from RAW to jpg? I'm not even sure if I'm going about it in the best manner!

Ben

Not necessarily. It just depends on how the editing is done on the image. Since the two arent exactly the same, the adjustments will just be different.

[Samanax]

Originally Posted by tinmice

I take it from that then that it is better to use LR rather than ACR to convert to .jpg?

I actually prefer the images that are first processed in ACR and then sent to CS3 for final adjustments to the images that are processed only in LR2 or have had the initial adjustments done in LR2 and then sent to CS3 for final adjustments.

Originally Posted by tinmice

How do you go about getting yours from RAW to jpg? I'm not even sure if I'm going about it in the best manner!

If I'm using ACR/CS3 I first do the initial adjustments in ACR and then open the image in CS3 and work the image until I'm happy with it. Then I use the "Save For Web" option since most of my images just end up on Flickr (I don't print my images very often).

If I'm use LR2 I just work the image until I'm happy with it and then Export it to JPEG using the dimensions and image quality I want.