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« on: August 28, 2009, 04:45:27 PM » |
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September 2009: Digital Photography Reality Check
Background
Visit just about any online
forum related to digital photography and you'll find what amount to
"digital gangs" where people hang out and talk about the latest features
found on some model camera or printer and how their equipment is better
than the equipment used by that "other gang" using a different brand.
Occasionally, one gang member will break etiquette and go visit another
gangs territory, sometimes just to "troll" and start trouble. For
some of us who started our passion for digital photography early, we
remember the old days of the Nikon Coolpix 990 or the Olympus D600L or
maybe even the first "real" consumer camera that I can remember: the
Kodak DC40. Some of us took great pictures back then. With
all the talk online about "14 megapixels just isn't enough, you need 21
megapixels", it makes you wonder how we ever survived back in those
archaic times around a decade ago. I was in a local restaurant
lately where one of our lunch buddies sells large (13x19 and larger)
prints that hang on the wall, mostly of vintage cars. They all
look like they came from a recent pro camera but when you ask the
photographer "What did you use for that one, a Canon 5D Mark II?" the
answer you get is "Nope. I shot that one with my old CP990".
That's a 3 MP camera and some people would swear you could barely get a
decent 8x10 at that resolution yet back then, when we had to, we found a
way. We produced 13x19 and even larger prints from those photos
with the aid of sophisticated resampling software like
Qimage.
Now we turn our nose up at anything under about 10 megapixels.
Seems like now might be a good time for a reality check!
Resolution
Seems almost surreal that
just a decade ago we were working with digital cameras that were pushing
the limits trying to reach the 2 megapixel boundary! Since that
time, the "more is better" mentality has driven the digital photography
industry and in 2009 our high end consumer dSLR cameras sit comfortably
at around 12 to 14 megapixels. Looking back to what we did with
our photos a decade ago and the prints we were able to produce just a
few years ago with only 5 to 6 megapixels has to make you wonder.
How many pixels do you really need? People spend lots of money
selling old cameras and buying new ones just to get a few more
megapixels and a little less image noise. What is that really
doing for you?
Aside from some pretty significant
improvements that are starting to appear in the mirrorless dSLR designs,
upgrading your camera every year or two just doesn't make sense.
Sure, you may be able to squeak by with a little lower
light or produce a photo that, when examined under a 10x loupe,
has a little less noise but what did that do for the overall photograph
and was it worth $1000 to upgrade? Let's do the reality check.
Most of us print 4x6 photos for family snapshots and print some 5x7 or
8x10's for the mantle. Some of us who are a little better at
photography might print some 11x17 prints or 13x19 prints to frame and
display on a wall. Very few of us need enough pixels to fill a
billboard nor are we such poor photographers that we have to do extreme
cropping to get a decent print. For those of us who have printers
big enough to even print a 13x19, how many pixels do we need?
Well, you'll find plenty of references to the old myth that you need 300
PPI for "photo quality". To get a razor sharp 4x6 that passes all
scrutiny without any resampling when holding the print up to your nose
and examining it, that might be true. Fortunately we have programs
that can resample photos automatically and we don't normally walk up to
a 13x19 print and examine it with a magnifying glass so we can get away
with resolution a lot lower than 300 PPI when we print large posters.
That's how the old CP990 pulls off poster size prints.
In reality, an old 6
megapixel camera running 3000x2000 resolution would produce that 13x19
print at just under 160 PPI. With resampling, that 160 PPI looks
great on a 13x19 print. A 12 megapixel camera coming in at around
4200x2800 pixels could reproduce the same 13x19 photo at about 220 PPI.
Would the print from the 12 megapixel camera look better/sharper than
the print from the 6 megapixel camera? That depends a bit on the
subject matter but in general, yes, the 12 megapixel camera would
produce a sharper print at that size. But here's the question you
should be asking: how does that change the overall photo? Does it
look sharper if you walk up to it and examine it closely?
Probably; a little. Does it look sharper from a distance where
people normally view a 13x19 print? I doubt it! Does that
really deter from the photo, other than those who are looking for pixels
or trying to show off a particular camera?
The bottom line here is
that more than the number of pixels, noise characteristics of the
camera, or camera features, the most important thing is the photo
itself. We're at 12 megapixels and above now on most affordable
consumer dSLR cameras. That's probably enough for anyone printing
just about any size photo short of the few people who have specialized
needs such as printing large panoramas or billboards for commercial use.
Stop obsessing about your pixels and go take some great photos!
Let the software engineers (like me) obsess over what to do with those
pixels so you don't have to. :-)
Printers, ink, and 16 bit printing
Another trend that is gaining some (albeit slow) steam
is 16 bit (per channel) printers. I've said for years that in
99.9% of cases, the benefit of 16 bit printing is something that will
never be seen in practice. I'm in the business of designing
software for photographic printing and I have yet to see an example
where someone can demonstrate the difference between 8 bit per channel
(24 bit) printing and 16 bit per channel (48 bit) printing other than
maybe a slight color shift due to the fact that they are two different
drivers with different settings. Some have tried, but I've turned
right around and produced the same print through the normal 8
bit-per-channel driver that was indistinguishable from the 16 bit print.
That said, the manufacturers will continue to tout it and with the
release of Windows 7 and what Microsoft calls "HD imaging", you're going
to be hearing a lot more about 16 bit printing. Why? Because
"more is better" and it sells. Reality check time!
Your monitor is 8 bits per channel (24 bits). Even
when you select 32 bits for your display type, that's still 24 bit color
with a mask or alpha channel which doesn't add to the color depth.
Does the fact that your monitor works at 8 bits per channel bother you?
Have you ever noticed any banding or color problems as a result?
If so, they likely came from a source other than the fact that the
monitor is running in 8 bits per channel! Printers are now running
8, 9, 10, or more inks just to try to keep up with the color gamut
available on your monitor and that works fine at 8 bits per channel so
why do you need 16 bits per channel on the printer? Well, in
reality, there are some areas of color where your printer's color gamut
exceeds that of your monitor like yellow and magenta. To actually
benefit from that extra gamut using a 16 bit printer, however, ALL of
the following must happen:
-
First, you have to take a photo of something that has
super saturated yellow or magenta. Okay. Let's say you've
found a bright yellow or magenta flower that fits the bill.
-
Next, your camera has to be able to record the colors in
that wide gamut. Camera systems (the sensor plus the processing
software) have gamuts more narrow than most printers in the
yellow/magenta region but let's just say the yellow/magenta flower you
are shooting just happens to have the right shade of yellow to be within
the gamut of the photo you captured.
-
Now you have to have taken the picture in raw photo
mode. If you didn't, your JPEG will be tagged with either sRGB or
Adobe RGB, both of which are smaller (in some areas) than your printer's
gamut.
-
Next, you have to process your raw photo to a large
enough color space to hold the color gamut and you must produce a 48 bit
image. Most people use ProPhoto as their large color space (see
the next section).
-
Finally, and here's the difficult part to understand
sometimes, you must remember that a 24 bit image can cover the exact
same amount of gamut as a 48 bit image! There is no difference in
the color gamut that a 24 bit versus 48 bit image can use. The
difference is in the smoothness of that coverage. So to notice any
difference in the prints, the printer's handling of the 24 bit image
must be such that banding shows up in areas of slowly changing color
like blue skies. That normally never happens unless you use a
color space that is larger than it needs to be in the first place
(again, covered in the next section).
The reality check here is that all of the above almost
never happen at once. If you think you need 16 bit per channel
printing and you already have a 16 bit printer, just print your photo
through the special 16 bit driver that came with your printer and then
reprint it through the normal 8 bit per channel Windows driver and see
if you can see a difference. If you find a difference other than
some slight color cast or other shift that is likely due to the two
drivers having different settings, it is likely due to a problem
somewhere else in the workflow rather than the bit depth of the printer
driver.
The bottom line for printer is, if you think you need a
16 bit per channel printer or a printer that is advertised as having a
16 bit driver, hang on to your wallet for a while longer. Most of
us have been printing astounding photographs from printers with typical
8 bit printer drivers for a long time. Don't waste your money on a
printer just to get 16 bit printing when you'll likely see no visible
difference in your prints as a result. Of course, there are other
reasons for wanting/needing a new printer but you get the idea.
Large color spaces
I'm not going to spend a
lot of time on this subject as I've covered it in detail before in my
prior article on 16 bit printers.
Some people have started processing all their raw photos into very large
gamut color spaces like ProPhoto RGB because they are afraid if they
don't, some of their colors will be clipped. In reality, we've
been processing and printing photos from Adobe RGB for many years
without worrying that our photos might be "missing" some colors.
With newer wider gamut printers running lots of inks, isn't a wide gamut
color space needed? Simply put, not in most cases. Again, a
lot has to happen to get a "wide gamut color" to go from image capture
to print. You have to have a subject that has a super saturated,
bright color. Your camera and developing software has to be able
to process that color: simply stated, the camera itself has to have the
gamut to pick it up. And lastly, the color in question has to
reside in the two or three (usually small) areas of your printer's color
gamut that exceed a typical color space like Adobe RGB. I won't
even go into the pitfalls of ICM color management and how there are many
compromises being made there that affect this subject: that subject
alone is big enough for another article.
Where's the reality check?
Process your raw photos to Adobe RGB developed photos and print them.
Then process them to ProPhoto RGB and print those. Do you see a
difference? You'd probably win the lottery before you came upon a
combination where you could see a difference. And using a very
large color space can actually cause color banding where none would
exist when using a smaller color space like Adobe RGB. Simply put,
if you are like most people and you use sRGB or Adobe color space for
you photos, 16 bit printing is of no real benefit. If, however,
you are one of the "purists" who insist on using ProPhoto color space
for your images, 16 bit printing may actually improve your photos
by providing smoother color gradations. My advice? Don't complicate
your workflow by using specialized (over-sized) color spaces unless you
have a specific need to do so. Most of us don't have such a need!
Summary: Reality check on the reality check!
Okay, I admit, I'm
oversimplifying a bit in this article but that was my intention: to
bring people back to reality and encourage photographers to get back to
what is important and not get caught up in the "mine is bigger than
yours" digital gang wars. The reality check on my reality check is
that, while many people may get caught up in the technology wars while
forgetting that we are trying to make great photos, I'm not advocating
halting forward progress! Do I think manufacturers should never
try for more than 12 megapixels? Of course not. Do I think
16 bit printing is useless and manufacturers should quit touting the
benefits? Definitely not! The reality is that we have
equipment now that can produce incredible photos and I want to get it
across that these new technologies don't make you a better photographer
and often times don't make visibly superior photos or prints!
These technologies are simply stepping stones to better things down the
road. Don't let them stall you from doing what is most important:
getting great photographs!
Mike Chaney
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« Last Edit: August 28, 2009, 05:40:07 PM by Mike Chaney »
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Fred A
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« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2009, 07:10:44 PM » |
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Excellent article Mike.
Thanks!
I read it and came away with loads of info, but the main point/issue I got out of it was that to get better prints, instead of buying the latest and greatest, I would be better off honing my photographic technique (assuming I had any).
Fred
Thanks again!
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Seth
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« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2009, 08:27:20 PM » |
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author=Mike Chaney link=topic=308.msg1893#msg1893 date=1251477927
For some of us who started our passion for digital photography early, we remember the old days of the Nikon Coolpix 990 or the Olympus D600L or maybe even the first "real" consumer camera that I can remember: the Kodak DC40. Mike- Oooooooooohmygod, you're trying to antiquate me!! No drugs and you gave me flash backs. IF you don't mind, I would like to relate how both those cameras(CP990 and DC40) helped "change" photographic history. |
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« Last Edit: August 29, 2009, 02:38:18 PM by Seth »
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Seth
<CWO4 (FMF) USN, Ret.>
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Eljae
Jr. Member
Posts: 68
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« Reply #3 on: August 29, 2009, 01:08:55 AM » |
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Thanks for the great article Mike! Let the software engineers (like me) obsess over what to do with those pixels so you don't have to. :-) ...and this is why I ordered Qimage this afternoon, as well as the great group on your forum. Lj |
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« Last Edit: August 29, 2009, 01:15:17 AM by Eljae »
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Ya Me
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« Reply #4 on: August 29, 2009, 12:39:53 PM » |
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Mike, thanks for the great article.
It's an article I'm sure I will read several time!
Ya Me
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If I Don't Ask .. Who Will?
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Keith
Newbie
Posts: 17
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« Reply #5 on: August 31, 2009, 01:11:41 AM » |
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Hi Mike,
Your software is just great, and I have enjoyed all the articles read to date. In this case I would like to offer some of my own input that somewhat seems to run against the grain of this piece. For me the constant improvements with cameras, computer software and printers has really helped noticeably. My reality check has been that even with my limited expertise the photos are now of a much higher quality, the software precesses things much better and easier and the printers do a great job on making up for my short comings. I look forward to improving my knowledge and skills, especially with Qimage, but my argument is that the upgrades across the board are helping very noticeably and I find myself befitting by purchasing the newest technology I can afford. That is my reality check.
Regards,
Keith
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photoalbummaker
Newbie
Posts: 3
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« Reply #6 on: September 01, 2009, 12:41:35 PM » |
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My first DSLR, the Nikon D70, still serves me well. Since my target print sizes are typically 12x12 or 11x14 or less to fit photo albums I'm under no pressure to upgrade to higher resolution cameras. Eversince I bought my first Epson Stylus IIs, a primitive first generation color printer, I began the quest for an ideal printing vehicle. This proves to be a long challenging journey. Image capture has been made easy with the digital camera, perhaps a little more time consuming with film and scanning, but printing is quite another animal.
After going through several Epsons up to my last two R1800's, I'm now settled with the HP Designjet 30, a dye based printer, for its reliable operation, ie. no clogs whatsoever. And to get the best print from this printer I use Wasatch SoftRIP with a Gretag Macbeth profiling package to print on Monadnoch 100 LB cover paper coated with Inkaid or Golden Digital Grounds (I don't have to worry about a dwindling supply of swellable polymer anymore - there are now only two sources: HP's Premium Plus and Ilford Classic).
So I doubt it if I'll upgrade my camera any time soon, and it looks like I can take a breather in the enduring quest for a printing approach that dries quickly, accepts archival coatings well, and tough enough to endure the clamping and hammering as it goes through my album binding process, and the print engine that does not consume 90% of my time to get it to work properly.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for listening to mine,
--nick
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Terry-M
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« Reply #7 on: September 01, 2009, 02:19:25 PM » |
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And to get the best print from this printer I use Wasatch SoftRIP Have you ever tried using Qimage, you can use the trial version for 30days? A fraction of the cost too  Terry. |
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photoalbummaker
Newbie
Posts: 3
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« Reply #8 on: September 01, 2009, 04:28:07 PM » |
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Actually I do use QImage, as well as Photoshop depending on the current digital imaging requirement. I may use the QImage upsampling engine when I need to. Then I import the edited image into the RIP and print in CMYK mode.
If I stay with the HP Premium Plus paper which is designed specifically for the Designjet 30/90/130 printers, I don't need SoftRIP. I like my homemade paper much better for its surface characteristic, and I find the RIP gives me much better output due to its ability to linearize and control ink limit for each CMYK channel.
So I need the RIP to create CMYK profiles and then only for the printing phase. And yes, I agree that QImage is very affordable for what it can do.
--nick
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bgrigor
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« Reply #9 on: September 06, 2009, 12:31:25 AM » |
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Thanks Mike, very well said and so true. I am a digital artist and I also print images and do art reproduction for other people for a living. I come up against the "300 ppi" myth all the time. Yet, in practice, I have produced amazing prints on canvas from point-and-shoot cameras at effective resolutions as low as 79 ppi. By "amazing", I mean I didn't expect it to look as good as it did and the client was delighted. And those prints were done with Qimage.
Cheers!
Brad
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--bag
"May fortune favor the foolish."
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rpcohen
Newbie
Posts: 10
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« Reply #10 on: September 16, 2009, 02:30:43 AM » |
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Great column Mike and good reality check. My first digi-cam captured 1.5M images which produced very nice 8x10 prints until I learned that such a thing wasn't possible without many, many more megapixels.  Ralph |
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jbhaber
Newbie
Posts: 23
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« Reply #11 on: September 25, 2009, 08:47:50 PM » |
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I've been printing up to 20x30 images from my 6mb Canon Rebel XT for years. Been winning camera club awards and have been selling some images, too. Use Qimage for up to 13x19, and send out for the larger ones. Lots of complements, and not one complaint!
Thanks for the great utility, Mike!
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JB Haber
(Go Terps!)
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Fred Too
Newbie
Posts: 2
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« Reply #12 on: September 26, 2009, 02:09:24 AM » |
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Well said, Mike! I've been doing this for a long time and agree strongly with your position. I like to stay "current" with my camera but know that this really isn't necessary but it's still fun!
It's a different issue, but I love your new Flashpipe software. The convenience of sending photos to my networked computer in the back room is great and I feel this convenient "backup" my save my neck one of these days! Many thanks for your work on this.
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hedwards
Newbie
Posts: 29
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« Reply #13 on: October 03, 2009, 01:30:11 AM » |
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Nice article, I think that it points out a few things which have been evident for a while, if overlooked. 6MP is indeed enough for many purposes, and except for those that really need interchangeable lenses, a typical P&S is probably just fine.
The other thing though is that it's not just that more pixels aren't necessarily necessary, it's that we're going to the point now where the sensors are over resolving what the lens is capable of providing, and not just on cheaper lenses, mind you, but at some point we're probably going to hit the point where anything less than L quality is going to not really make the cut.
But then again, I'm sticking with my 10D because I really need better glass and by the time I upgrade my body, the much more important issue of noise on the sensor is going to be so much better than it is today. Even now I've seen some ISO 1600 images which were to my eye usable, not necessarily perfect, but somewhat better than my ISO 400 images off my current gear.
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