Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/04/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Alan's dissection of Moose Peterson's image and Eric Welch's image is very accurate. One can make a photo with a $45 P&S and then make the same photo with a $10,000 Leica system and still get the SAME image on a computer screen! Believe it or not! How is this possible? When you scan the slide/neg, you lose information. No scanner can capture ALL the data in a slide/neg. Next, when you load the image into your graphics software into a standardized file format, you lose information. Then, every single step you make in correcting the image does more damage.......cropping, image resizing, sharpening, unsharp masking, changing contrast or brightness, levels, curves, saturation, etc. Finally, to get the file on the web, you use JPG or GIF. If you choose GIF, the photo has no chance, since GIF is best for graphics, not photos. If you choose JPG, you have the best chance for a perfect image, but no matter which level of compression you choose, you LOSE DATA again! If you choose minimum compression and maximum image quality, the file will always be immense and unreasonable for people to download (unless they have ISDN or T-1/T-3). When all is said and done, the image sits on your computer screen and probably holds less than 40% of the data it used to hold. Enlarge it even to 150% and you'll get artifacts, rough edges, inaccurate colors, etc. All that I just said is true if you are using cheap equipment or you don't know what you're doing. All this can change if you do it the right way......use a very high quality scanner or go with PhotoCD. By doing so, you insure MUCH more information to start with befroe you begin decimating the file with corrections. By the time you are done, you have chipped away a smaller proportion of the image data and it remains gorgeous! You can even enlarge it and see fine details. To get this level of detail though, the JPG will have to be at least 500 KB, maybe over 1 MB, which, to the average Internet user, is unaccetable. Compromise.....that's what digital imaging is all about. One day photos on the web will look as good as transparencies on a light box, with zoom capability up to 20X. By then, almost every home in the developed world will be connected to this global Internet by superfast fiber optic cables or even receive Internet information by some new laser or infrared technique. By then, digital cameras will be SOOO good and reasonably priced, that we will all want one of the new Leica versions and the M6 and R8 will be simply collectors items. Not because they don't make good photos, but because we will all want ot be on the cutting edge and because the world around us will REQUIRE a proficiency in digital technology in order for us to survive. At 09:05 AM 4/9/98 +0200, Alan Ball wrote: >Eric Welch wrote: >> >> At 06:31 PM 4/8/98 +0200, you wrote: >> >> >We could do blind tests. Please check the CoolPix 900 info page on the >> >Nikon site: some of the pictures there could serve as propaganda for Leica >> >glass and high quality film. They are just plain perfect. On the Web. try >> >this: http://www.nikonusa.com/products/imaging/images/moosebird.jpg >> >> Tell me about it. Like the Apple ad for their first digital camera, which >> was a piece of crap and made pictures that were no good at 2x3 inches! The >> ad in the magazines were all superb. You sure they were made with that camera? > >These images could serve to showcase Leica equipment. Nikon introduces >the images with the following statement: "taken with the Coolpix900 >digital camera by world-renowned photographers Jon Ortner and B. Moose >Peterson." I find Moose Peterson's images there absolutely gorgeous. Not >so keen on Jon Ortner's. I do not believe for a split second that either >Nikon or these photographers are organising a scam. I believe these >images are what they say they are. The files are very big. And I >conclude that they are making a point regarding Web publishing >technology more than regarding digital cameras and their usage for high >quality enlargements or printing. > >> >> >get 24-bit at the office though.Your JPEG compressions are destructive and >> >larger pictures would take too long to download. I think this is an average >> >Web experience. The more I look at it, the more I believe black and white >> >is better suited for Web scrutinity than colour. >> >> Where do you get the impression that JPEG destroys it? Where do you see JPG >> artifacts in my pictures? Sure, blow them up real big, and they get jaggie, >> but the tonal modulation is also destroyed at that size. > >Okay. I saved the "bride.jpg "image. Opened it in Micrografx Picture >Publisher 8.0, with screen settings of my office NT 4.0 workstation at >24-bit. Visualizing the image on a high quality 17" Philips Brilliance >17A. The properties of your image are the following: 24-bit RGB color - >396 pixels wide, 246 pixels high - 72 dpi resolution - image size of 285 >Kb in memory and 36 Kb on disk. These figures already show heavy >compression and low-res scanning. JPEG compression is destructive by >nature. JPEG's de-compression algorithms include a lot of interpolation >and "guess work". If you compress the file at a high ratio, you destroy >proportionaly more info and you imply more interpolation work on the >visualizing side. > >For me that means that the image I have here on screen is remotely >evocative of your neg or print (did you scan the neg or the print BTW ? >It looks like print scanning to me). The information that it gives me is >that you have taken a picture of a bride and friends having fun. I do >not know these people, so I am not really touched by their actions as >related by this picture. > >If I want to get more info on the faces, the expressions, the dresses, >the objects around these people, try to get acquainted with them and/or >get info on the imaging qualities of your hardware, I have to zoom in. >So, let's be fair, let's do a modest 150 pct enlargement. Well, Eric, I >get absolutely fuzzy pixelisation, and cannot see anything more on the >image. At 200 pct, which remains reasonable, it is even worse of course. >Can't figure out what the bride is holding in her hand or what the guy >on the left is holding to his mouth. Is it a bottle, a microphone ? > >So, I maintain, repeat, unrepentantly, that this image does not give >credit to the fact your were using a R8 with 19mmf2.8 Elmarit. Could >have been a Stylus Epic (except for the angle of view of course), or >could have been a 17mm Tokina. So, again, I would not publish it under >the heading "Cool Leica Pictures", but somewhere else in your portfolio >where you would show that you can provide non-classical wedding >pictures. > >If you download moosehse.jpg from the Coolpix 900 page (the house in the >snow), you fill much more than your screen at 100 pct. No use zooming >in. It is full of detail. With very nice gradation. On my monitor the >snow is a little blue. But it could be due to my monitor. It could have >been provided by a careful JPEG compression of a high end scan of a "M6 >+ 35mm f1.4 at f5.6 with Royal Gold ISO 200" ;-/ > >> >> Enjoy Marakkesh. I remember Bruno Barbey talking about Fez smelling like >> the stench of a thousand dead camels. Hope Marrakech is better. :-) > >I know Marrakkesh quite well. It smells great. I'll be hiking in the >Atlas as well. > >> Go ahead and share your pictures. I think if all we do is flex our >> "spending" muscles to prove what great equipment we bought, and not >> pictures that mean something to us, well, we're pretty dang boring. > >That is a wise statement. Photography is about pictures. I am extremely >surprised how agressive this has turned out to be... > >Friendly regards >Alan >Brussels-Belgium > Francesco Sanfilippo, Five Senses Productions webmaster@5senses.com http://www.5senses.com/