I shot with a Nikon D2H. I performed an experiment where I tried the different in-camera image sizes and JPG compressions and what each would look like printed out at 8x10 size. I shot 6 images (Large/Fine, Large/Medium, Large/Basic, Medium/Fine, etc. etc....you get the idea).
The resulting files on the CF chip ranged from about 800K to 2+meg I think. When I brought those files into PSCS and then cropped/resized the image to 8x10 at 225 dpi and saved them as JPG files at Photoshop quality level 12, I ended with files ranging from 1.5Mb to 2.3Mb. When each were printed at 8x10, the resulting images looked almost identical.
OK. Cool I say. I shoot event photography where 99.999% of what I sell is 5x7 and 8x10. If I can shoot at a lower size/quality in-camera and get the same result at 8x10, then I change chips less, and PM absolutely FLIES when ingesting/processing small files -- If the resulting files on the PC are also smaller, well, more pictures per CD/DVD backup, less disk space used, etc. Something about having my cake and eating it too comes up here. Anyway...
(Bear with me, there is a question in here - the background may be important)
I shot an event last night with the camera set to Large/Basic based on what I learned earlier. I had assumed that my resulting images would be smaller as a result of changing to the "Basic" quality setting rather than the typical "Fine" I used to use. In-camera, the images stored on the CF chip were indeed smaller.
I then ingested the chip with 300+ pictures via PhotoMechanic (4.3.8/Windows) and then did a "Save As..." using "Scale to fit box" set to 2718 (12+ inches at 225dpi) and the JPG quality set to the highest level on the folder with the 300+ pictures. I want the resulting JPGs to be sized for an 8x10 (well, actually 8x12-ish given the sensor dimensions). After the "Save As...", the resulting JPG files were 3.8Mb to 4.5Mb each on my hard drive.
Now wait a minute! Opening and saving the Large/Basic images exclusively in PSCS resulted in a saved image size of about 1.8Mb. Saving them through PM resulted in +/-4Mb.
Opening the JPGs I created in the original test in PSCS as well as opening the PhotoMechanic "Save As" pictures in PSCS and then doing "Image Size" on both images shows that both are at 225 dpi and are either 8x10 or 8x12. I know the extra 2" can't be taking up all that extra space.
OK, so all this background leads up to this question:
Why are the PSCS files so much smaller for an apparently same size image than the images produced through "Save As" in Photo Mechanic?
Thanks for your patience in reading this. Hopefully the answer is more simple than the question!
-Mike
Fairfield Photography
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Why are the PSCS files so much smaller for an apparently same size image than the images produced through "Save As" in Photo Mechanic?
At the highest quality setting, PM does a "near lossless" JPEG (if you do a standard deviation of the pixels before and after, the deviation will be less than one) and this results in a fairly large JPEG. (Larger than you would expect.)
If you want something more like what Photoshop does, move it down one notch.
HTH,
-Kirk
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Linear Mode
