Good processing tip

J

Jad

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John
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I always make all of my exposures a RAW file, so I will have the full 16 bit file for editing in PS. Recently I accidentally exposed an entire days worth of photography to 8 bit jpeg. When I realized my mistake and I felt sick about the great images I had made that day, and all of them in jpeg. I was consulting with a friend about my problem and he suggested to duplicate the jpegs and run the two jpegs together through a HDR software to make them a 16 bit TIFF file. I have Photomatix Pro and used that for making the TIFF file. It worked perfectly and I was able to edit my images in PS as a 16 bit file. So if you have some images that you made in jpeg and wished to make them a 16 bit file, give it a try.
 
I can't see what this will give you. The total dynamic range will be the same. You can't add what's not there. Plus, Photomatix will be adding all manner of tonemapping artefacts.


I'd have just worked on the JPEGs as normal.
 
You can convert direct to 16 bit in photoshop without using the photomatix conversion, but blending 2 duplicate images isn't making any real difference, you still have 8 bits, it's just stretched out more, 8 bits in a 16 bit wrapper.
 
What would happen if you ran 4 duplicate jpegs through Photomatix? :D
 
HDR create a true 16 bit file as opposed to taking a 8 bit JPEG and simply converting it to 16 bits. The JPEG image to the converted 16 bit image and it looks better. There is no banding, second the grain looks smoother and third the edges on high contrast transitions are smoother. it does not produce that “HDR” look in this process. The best way to know is to try it for yourself.
 
Jad said:
The JPEG image to the converted 16 bit image and it looks better. There is no banding,
Click to expand...


Sorry.. this is incorrect. Converting it to 16 bit will not add any more information to the file. It will prevent banding with further editing perhaps, but you can not create what was not there to begin with. This... is a fact. An 8bit JPEG shouldn't have any banding anyway, unless you've created it with poor editing.
 
Is this really a "Good processing tip"?

Unless you've bracketed the JPGs it's a pointless exercise. I'm with Pookeyhead, I'd just process the jpegs normally.
 
Jad said:
HDR create a true 16 bit file as opposed to taking a 8 bit JPEG and simply converting it to 16 bits. The JPEG image to the converted 16 bit image and it looks better. There is no banding, second the grain looks smoother and third the edges on high contrast transitions are smoother. it does not produce that “HDR” look in this process. The best way to know is to try it for yourself.
Click to expand...

Yes HDR can create a 16 bit image, but your not getting HDR, for true HDR you need images with different exposures, you don't have that.
 
you're also creating a 16bit image that only contains 8bits worth of data, as it was created with a single 8 bit file.
 
JT74 said:
What would happen if you ran 4 duplicate jpegs through Photomatix? :D
Click to expand...

WOW!

Now you've got a 32 bit image!

Or not:lol:

Seriously you could possibly make 4 intermediate TIFF files at differing exposures to try and recover as much of the highlights and shadows as possible, strip out the Exif info then process them through Photomatix (if it can "guess" the exposures).

This might increase the dynamic range a bit.

.
 
petersmart said:
WOW!

Now you've got a 32 bit image!

Or not:lol:

Seriously you could possibly make 4 intermediate TIFF files at differing exposures to try and recover as much of the highlights and shadows as possible, strip out the Exif info then process them through Photomatix (if it can "guess" the exposures).

This might increase the dynamic range a bit.

.
Click to expand...
I don't think thats the aim, as far as I can tell the OP's just after 16 bit. (I could be wrong)
 
I will admit I am no digital expert, but I do think there is an advantage to duplicating the jpeg and then converting a jpeg to a TIFF using a HRD program. Here is an example of the file size difference. I would think more file data to use in the photo editing process would be better.
Example:
Original jpeg file from camera = 3.3mb
jpeg converted to TIFF in PS = 26.7mb
jpeg duplicated and run through Photomatix = 53.2 mb
 
Jad said:
I will admit I am no digital expert, but I do think there is an advantage to duplicating the jpeg and then converting a jpeg to a TIFF using a HRD program. Here is an example of the file size difference. I would think more file data to use in the photo editing process would be better.
Example:
Original jpeg file from camera = 3.3mb
jpeg converted to TIFF in PS = 26.7mb
jpeg duplicated and run through Photomatix = 53.2 mb
Click to expand...

There is zero benefit of what you are suggesting.

The file size differences are down to bitrate and (lack of) compression than any actual difference in data.

You can't magic data from thin air :shrug:
 
The only real (and debatable) benefit would be to use Photoshop to save the .jpg's as .tiff's, which would prevent .jpg related degradation when saving after making edits in the future. Theres a whole off-topic of discussion right there which isnt for this thread.

Whats the folks are saying is that if you have an 8bit file, saving it as a 16bit isn't giving you 16bit worth of information in that file ... you only had 8bit so will only ever have 8bit worth of information, regardless of how "big" the file size becomes. All you now have is an 8bit file saved in a 16bit "shell" if you like, same amount of information just saved into a bigger file.

Merging two identical .jpg's is the same (in a sense), both files (say, 1.jpg and 1-copy.jpg) have exactly the same information, merging them together doesnt give 1.jpg any extra information than it already had, regardless of how big the final file size is.



The size of a file kb's or mb's doesnt necessarily reflect how much information it holds inside. In your case what your doing is making a 3.3mb file in to a 53mb file, a bigger file with the same amount of information inside.

Of course, if I'm wrong at all, please feel free to correct me as I'm still learning :)
 
It looks like the information I was given is wrong. I now realize you can never add to the original 8 bit jpeg but I was led to believe that duplicating and running the two jpegs through HDR would be better than a jpeg to TIFF conversion in PS. At least the image I was concerned about came out much better than I had hoped so my mistake wasn't a complete loss. Thanks for everyones input. John
 
you learnt something though, so thats good :)
 
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