This is a new processing technique for me, shooting solely raw and converting in CS3, so my results may vary. But here is my Rocky Mountain High for you guys.

http://tardypizza.com/Images/Colorado/

Here are some of my favorites:































There's a slight chance that I might have slightly overdone 1 or 2 of them. But dayumn, they look sweet on my monitor!

They look pretty good on my (uncalibrated) work monitor.

very nice shots!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by tardypizza

Nice work!
funny that one ^ reminds me a lot of this one (from my Canada trip):
http://www.benjacobsen.com/wp-conten...3/IMG_1015.jpg

and not shot for shot, but looking at your shot, and remembering what I saw, it's very similar.

Originally Posted by jacobsen1

http://www.benjacobsen.com/wp-conten...3/IMG_1015.jpg

focal length = 12mm, check :P

That reminds me, I really need to change my action to "save as" instead of "save for web" so you guys have access to the exif.


I'm really pleased I got 50+ keepers, because I really didn't spend a lot of time shooting. Stupid beer. But I am hooked on RAW now, I may never shoot jpg again.

Originally Posted by tardypizza

These two are my favorites, mostly because the sky is dynamic and because you have some colors that are awesome.

what are the differences in shooting RAW?

Thanks! I will probably send both of those off to get printed.

Did you see this other Garden of the Gods shot with different composition?

Originally Posted by distorto

what are the differences in shooting RAW?

The basic theory is you prevent the camera from doing its own jpg conversion and you get to see all of the data that the camera records. Benefits are total control over WB and exposure, and there are a lot more adjustments you can do in the conversion. Images tend to come out sharper as well. PS is just manipulating pixels numerically, so if you give it more information to work with there is less degradation of image quality.

Also the bit depth.
RAWs are 12bit (some new cameras just now are 14bit). JPEGs are 8bit.
Make a difference in the number of colors available. If you're only putting things online you won't notice it, but printing you will.

Eggzachary, bit depth is a measure of how much data is there. The jpg compression algorithm is essentially throwing out some of that data, and methodically recording many identical pixel values as one value.

Analogous to how an mp3 compression throws out the lows and highs and records identical frequencies in different parts of a song as one.

Originally Posted by jacobsen1

If you're only putting things online you won't notice it, but printing you will.

I've always uploaded jpegs to be printed... Can you print from a RAW file? How do you print these higher bit files?

Originally Posted by tardypizza

Thanks! I will probably send both of those off to get printed.

Did you see this other Garden of the Gods shot with different composition?

Yeah... I still like the one I quoted better because the sun on the red rocks really pops when they are more a part of the overall composition. In this other one, they are kind of lost in the big sky.

Originally Posted by LateApex

Originally Posted by jacobsen1

If you're only putting things online you won't notice it, but printing you will.

I've always uploaded jpegs to be printed... Can you print from a RAW file? How do you print these higher bit files?

Save as a tiff. The tiff file type has no compression so you retain your high bit depth. Of course, the files are huge. I have several tiffs in the ~20mb range

I actually typed "tiff?" in my reply, but deleted it... I'll have to try it.

Ted, actually you're not 100% accurate in that.
Tiffs are 16bit files by default, but can be 8 or 32 also... So if you have a 12bit file coming from a RAW it converts that "up" to 16bit. This also means a .tiff can handle the new 14bit files from the D3, 300D, mIIIs and 40D, and the rumored 16bit files from the next generation... But for compression, it's OPTIONAL now, it used to always compress the file, but in a LOSSLESS fashion. JPEGs do it in a "LOSSY" fashion so you lose information you can't get back. This is great for file sizes, and you can't notice it easily in the first few times, but if you keep resaving a file it becomes apparent. With tiffs you can save it as many times as you want w/o any effect. Be warned though there are 4 options for compression in tiffs now using PS. "None", "LZW", "ZIP", and "JPEG". LZW is the way it's always done it. "None" is exactly that, NO compression which makes an already big filesize big... Basically if you're shooting in RAW and then sending it to a printer you should use a .tiff with either "none" or "LZW" as the compression and the bit depth should be 16bit (32bit if this is a HDR). Here's some more info from PS's help menu:

TIFF
Tagged-Image File Format (TIFF, TIF) is used to exchange files between applications and computer platforms. TIFF is a flexible bitmap image format supported by virtually all paint, image-editing, and page-layout applications. Also, virtually all desktop scanners can produce TIFF images. TIFF documents have a maximum file size of 4 GB. Photoshop CS and later supports large documents saved in TIFF format. However, most other applications and older versions of Photoshop do not support documents with file sizes greater than 2 GB.

TIFF format supports CMYK, RGB, Lab, Indexed Color, and Grayscale images with alpha channels and Bitmap mode images without alpha channels. Photoshop can save layers in a TIFF file; however, if you open the file in another application, only the flattened image is visible. Photoshop can also save annotations, transparency, and multiresolution pyramid data in TIFF format.

In Photoshop, TIFF image files have a bit depth of 8, 16, or 32 bits per channel. You can save high dynamic range images as 32‑bits-per-channel TIFF files.

Bit depth (32‑bit only) Specifies the bit depth (16‑, 24‑, or 32‑bit) of the saved image.

Image Compression Specifies a method for compressing the composite image data. If you’re saving a 32‑bit TIFF file, you can specify that the file be saved with predictor compression, but you don’t have the option to use JPEG compression. Predictor compression offers improved compression by rearranging floating point values, and works with both LZW and ZIP compression.

About file compression
Many file formats use compression to reduce the file size of bitmap images. Lossless techniques compress the file without removing image detail or color information; lossy techniques remove detail. The following are commonly used compression techniques:



LZW (Lemple-Zif-Welch) Lossless compression; supported by TIFF, PDF, GIF, and PostScript language file formats. Most useful for images with large areas of single color.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) Lossy compression; supported by JPEG, TIFF, PDF, and PostScript language file formats. Recommended for continuous-tone images, such as photographs. JPEG uses lossy compression. To specify image quality, choose an option from the Quality menu, drag the Quality pop‑up slider, or enter a value between 0 and 12 in the Quality text box. For the best printed results, choose maximum-quality compression. JPEG files can be printed only on Level 2 (or later) PostScript printers and may not separate into individual plates.

Thanks for the extra info. I knew that tiffs had the option to compress, as I had seen the save dialogue many times, but I didn't know it was lossless compression. I just didn't feel like delving into it to the extent that you did! Good stuff.