RAW or JPEG for stacking?

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shaypivac
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2018 5:44 pm
Location: Australia

RAW or JPEG for stacking?

Post by shaypivac »

Hi,

Just curious if people still recommend RAW>.TIFF conversion for Zerene Stacker? Or just save the time and go JPEG from the beginning?

Thanks :D

svalley
Posts: 343
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 7:07 pm
Location: Albany, Oregon

Post by svalley »

I only shoot raw because it gives me control of all the properties that result in the best stack composite. Raw, 16bit, ProPhotoRGB....It may take more time to process, but I think I get the highest quality image my equipment is capable of producing.

Steve
"You can't build a time machine without weird optics"
Steve Valley - Albany, Oregon

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

It depends on what you're doing.

For absolute best results, working from RAW is definitely the right thing to do. It gives you a lot more flexibility to make even big adjustments in the raw-to-TIFF conversion. Further, by making the intermediate TIFFs be 16-bit, you can get correspondingly high quality 16-bit outputs, which can be further adjusted without visibly losing gradation.

On the other hand, if say you're shooting deep high magnification stacks and you're willing to give up some image quality in exchange for less storage and faster processing, then shooting JPEG can be a very attractive option. Just be careful to set up your illumination and camera so that you're getting the best JPEGs you possibly can, since JPEGs are always 8-bit color.

I choose either route, depending on what I care about for any particular stack.

--Rik

Deanimator
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Post by Deanimator »

svalley wrote:I only shoot raw because it gives me control of all the properties that result in the best stack composite. Raw, 16bit, ProPhotoRGB....It may take more time to process, but I think I get the highest quality image my equipment is capable of producing.

Steve
I agree completely.

I shoot EVERYTHING in RAW, from macro to landscapes. The degree of control is SO much greater.

JohnyM
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Joined: Tue Dec 24, 2013 7:02 am

Post by JohnyM »

I used to shoot RAW exclusively too, when it was just a hobby for me.
Nowdays, when i have to shoot ~20 subjects in a session, i just set camera to JPEG, and get this over with. I quickly learned to hate myself for "i'll fix it it post" attitude.

Robert Berdan
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Focus stacking

Post by Robert Berdan »

I prefer to stack images using RAW files using photoshop and Helicon Focus. I tested Zerene and like the other two programs better. I posted an article with my test results here if interested in reading it.

https://www.canadiannaturephotographer. ... cking.html

Hope there is something useful in the article for you - but I prefer the advantages of RAW most of the time.

kpassaur
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2015 6:52 am

RAW to Tiff

Post by kpassaur »

I heard this from a Nikon ambassador. He said always shoot in RAW and then convert it to a tiff using the software from your camera's manufacturer.

If you use LightRoom or any other conversion software you can loose quality. The reason is simple the manufacturer created their RAW format everyone else reverse engineers it. To make his point he showed an example in IR. Lightroom could not match what Canon's software could do and I did mention he was a Nikon ambassador. I shoot canon and the downside is you can only export uncompressed tiff in their software. So you end up with huge files. Ideally you would want to convert these to LZW compression tiffs so you still don't loose any data.

I don't bother unless I am shooting in IR. I'm not good enough to tell the difference.

What I have done is Ihave created a utility using Phil Harvey's Exif program and Irfanview to compress my tiffs with LZW compression. What happens is you forget or at least I do on occasion forget to choose LZW and you end up with huge uncompressed tiffs. The utility goes through a directory tree in Windows and it checks the compression with the Exif program and if uncompressed it compresses it with Irfanview. If anyone wants the program let me know and I will try to find the source code.

JH
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Post by JH »

I usually let the camera sawe both RAW and JPG. Most of the time the jpegs 8 bit colours are enough but not al the time. At high magnification I have to handle sensor dust in Adobe LR or Br before stacking. For this step I almost always use the RAW files and then save the dedusted files as tiffs or jpgs.

Best regards
Jörgen Hellberg
Jörgen Hellberg, my webbsite www.hellberg.photo

hero
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Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2017 12:38 pm
Location: California

Post by hero »

My current workflow, due to limited processing power, is a bit of a compromise: Capture is RAW, then I use the manufacturer's software to make adjustments and save these as JPEG for stacking. The adjustments I'm making primarily relate to exposure, color balance, and highlight/shadow tuning--things I can't do in camera and should be done before stacking. I have found that stacking TIFFs is impractically slow and the improvement is barely noticeable to my eyes. If I had more powerful computing hardware or the number of images to stack is very small, I'd definitely go 16-bit TIFF for stacking, though.

I've tried slabbing TIFF input but the bottom line is I need a much, much faster computer for the stacks I'm doing. Retouching in Zerene takes forever for me, because it takes about 3-5 seconds just to switch from one image to another.

I can corroborate the use of the manufacturer's RAW processing software--at least with respect to Canon. This is because Canon RAW stores proprietary information about the subject distance that, in combination with the lens information, lets the processing software know how to apply very specific corrections to the image, such as distortion correction as well as aberration correction. That's not to say that other software can't correct these in other ways or that it is inferior, but Canon's software does it based on information specific to the camera, lens, and shooting conditions.

RobertOToole
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Re: RAW to Tiff

Post by RobertOToole »

kpassaur wrote:I heard this from a Nikon ambassador. He said always shoot in RAW and then convert it to a tiff using the software from your camera's manufacturer.
Be careful with that advice, Nikon reps will also tell you to only use Nikon USA lenses on your Nikon DSLR.

Don't let them catch you using a Nikon lens bought outside the US.

Nikon reps will also tell you to never clean a camera sensor on your own.

Robert

svalley
Posts: 343
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 7:07 pm
Location: Albany, Oregon

Post by svalley »

Nikon and Canon build great cameras and lenses, but they are not particularly good at programming software, in my opinion.
"You can't build a time machine without weird optics"
Steve Valley - Albany, Oregon

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