Print suggestions for a little messed up situation

[Klorenzo]

Hi, I need to print in "high quality" 6x8 (15x20cm) about 70 pictures shot RAW with an EM-10.

I developed the pictures with Oly Viewer 3 the one that gave me the best colors. Then I bought a new PC and I lost all the processing I have done because OV3 does not store these in the same folder with the raw files

Yesterday I decided to print the images and I did a few tweaks with Darktable starting from an old OV3 full size low compression jpeg export and then, from Darktable, did another tiff Adobe RGB export. This because I do not have OV3 right now, I use linux, it's a long story...

Then I thought that maybe I should just start over with OV3 from the raw files (quite a lot of work). What do you think? Do you think the difference is going to show in this "small" size prints or I'm just paranoid? Images at 100% looks fine. I took a raw, exported as tiff, compared to my tweaked tiff and maybe sometimes I can see some small jpeg artifacts at 100%.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[fortwodriver]

Why print from JPEG? Why not print from TIFF? The more data you push to the printer, the better it can manage what you give it. Even a maximum-quality JPEG will throw away substantial colour data when compared to a TIFF file.

I think the best thing may be to print a few test prints and see how those look. If you like what you see, then that's all that really matters.

 

[dwig]

...Even a maximum-quality JPEG will throw away substantial colour data when compared to a TIFF file. ...

If, and only if, the TIFF was generated directly from the original RAW. As I read the OP's post it would seem that all of his new "processing" used his old OV3 JPEG exports as a source. Converting these to TIFFs will give you a "new master" that can be edited without further loss, but it will not auto-magically remove the losses that occurred when OV3 generated the JPEGs. The TIFFs will just be faithful reproductions of the JPEGs.

 

[walter_j]

Get lightroom. It's print module can que up as many pictures as you want to print. You can create contact sheets too. Once the photos are imported, you don't have to save them as jpeg - just organize them into a collection and print them all in one go.

 

[Klorenzo]

Just to clarify: the problem is that I have lost the raw processing infos and I'm trying to understand if it is really worth to start over again. The only thing I have is a good JPEG export (97%) I did to easily share the pictures.

I'm not going to print at home but in a printing service. The print size is quite small so I have a lot of extra resolution even at 300 dpi so I think that in terms of resolution I'm not going to see any difference and small jpeg artifacts should disappear. I'm not sure about the 8-bit sRGB vs the 16-bit Adobe RGB difference in practice.

 

[Replytoken]

Just to clarify: the problem is that I have lost the raw processing infos and I'm trying to understand if it is really worth to start over again. The only thing I have is a good JPEG export (97%) I did to easily share the pictures.

I'm not going to print at home but in a printing service. The print size is quite small so I have a lot of extra resolution even at 300 dpi so I think that in terms of resolution I'm not going to see any difference and small jpeg artifacts should disappear. I'm not sure about the 8-bit sRGB vs the 16-bit Adobe RGB difference in practice.

If you are printing from a service, have over 300PPI, and cannot see issues at 100% viewing, go ahead and print a test print. If reprocessing the raw files is not in the cards, then you have limited choices.

Good luck,

--Ken

 

[Klorenzo]

Ok, I setup a windows VM, installed OV3. Then I did a simple raw conversion as tiff 16 bit Adobe RGB and also as tiff 16 bit sRGB for comparison (with "embed profile" option turned on).

What I noticed is this (please, read all, is not what you think): the Adobe RGB files are darker in the dark zones and slightly more saturated.

I'm quite sure I'm using programs that supports Abobe RGB: OV3, Darktable and Rawtherapee.
If I use a simple image viewer the Adobe RGB files look dull and washed out as happen when the wrong color space is used. But here I have the opposite: the Adobe files, in comparison, looks way more strong.

Is this normal? I did not expect this. I'm seeing this both in the blue color, in the red and in the green. And the dark is way darker, even too much. The difference is big, is not some more saturated yellow shades.

I can see this happening with OV3 as soon as I select a different color space in the RAW options. Is there a "color space" used inside the RAW files and I'm picking up the wrong one instead of selecting the one to use for the export?

Edit: this last one was just a desperate idea, I'm quite sure a RAW file contains nothing but red, green, blue pixel values that are then "merged" (demosaiced) into a specific color that is then assigned a place inside a color space.

 

[barry]

Hi, using a VM may affect the color space, etc.

After processing the images in Windows, copy them to your native (non-VM) OS; do they look the same or different?

Barry

 

[kevinparis]

I suppose it depends on how precious/important the images are... but I suspect you are any one or combination of the following

1) trying to save badly exposed photos

2) over tweaking the sliders in OV3

3) over obsessed

I know OV3 is slow..and probably not the best tool for serious PP... but if you were getting good results then fine... Sounds like you were learning the first pass through.. it will be much quicker next time round

70 6x8 photos sounds like a social event to me... get them decent and they will be happy.. they wont notice/care about the PP work you are fretting over

I rarely spend more than a few minutes on my PP

K

 

[kevinparis]

edit... ignore what below... the JPEGs ... if they have your edits will be fine ... way more than that!!!


I suppose it depends on how precious/important the images are... but I suspect you are any one or combination of the following

1) trying to save badly exposed photos

2) over tweaking the sliders in OV3

3) over obsessed

I know OV3 is slow..and probably not the best tool for serious PP... but if you were getting good results then fine... Sounds like you were learning the first pass through.. it will be much quicker next time round

70 6x8 photos sounds like a social event to me... get them decent and they will be happy.. they wont notice/care about the PP work you are fretting over

I rarely spend more than a few minutes on my PP

K

 

[Klorenzo]

The pictures look reasonably well exposed, with minimal clipping. The result is the same for any picture. I did nothing but change the "Color space" from sRGB to Adobe, not other tweaks. The monitor is sold as factory calibrated with 99.5% sRGB, 78.1% Adobe RGB.

I'm not an expert but it is not the first time I'm developing raw files, although it is the first time I'm trying to get "best quality" prints trying a few new things.

Here is a sample (warning 100 MB): https://www.dropbox.com/s/tqthdh751j9coh6/OV3-color-spaces.zip?dl=0

I can see the same effect with OV3 on the windows VM and also with Darktable and Rawtherapee running on Linux.

I have shoot RAW+jpeg so I have the SOOC jpegs and these are exactly like the sRGB file from OV3. I'm quite sure the sRGB is the correct one I'm just trying to understand where is the problem just out of curiosity at this point.

 

[fortwodriver]

Is everything else set to work with AdobeRGB? It sounds like there's a dual-conversion going on. Something somewhere is bringing it back down to sRGB before you print or view.

The only thing I would watch for is for anything clipping to completely transparent white. When you print a photo that clips to 255, it looks strange because the printer, if not set to slightly compress the top end downwards, will actually print nothing in those blow-to-white spots. You'll end up with weird edges around the highlight.

So if I have an un-recoverable white blowout in a print, I usually dial that highlight area down to 254 or 252 so the printer still drops a little bit of ink in those white spots.

 

[Klorenzo]

Is everything else set to work with AdobeRGB? It sounds like there's a dual-conversion going on. Something somewhere is bringing it back down to sRGB before you print or view.

Probably not. I tried a few ICC profiles (from the monitor via EDID, download from tftcentral.co.uk, etc.) but all look almost the same. I never used Adobe RGB so maybe I need an ICC specific for it? Anyway I think I'm going to use sRGB and rework everything.

The only thing I would watch for is for anything clipping to completely transparent white. When you print a photo that clips to 255, it looks strange because the printer, if not set to slightly compress the top end downwards, will actually print nothing in those blow-to-white spots. You'll end up with weird edges around the highlight.

So if I have an un-recoverable white blowout in a print, I usually dial that highlight area down to 254 or 252 so the printer still drops a little bit of ink in those white spots.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll watch out for this.