File size/File type questions

[Karebear98]

Ok, after you have imported your raw files into photoshop or lightroom or whatever you use and make all your edits: Do you then save your file as a jpeg? tiff? psd? or what do you prefer when you export?

What size files do you typically end up with after this process?

Also, if you give your portrait clients the option for a digital file cd, what size files do you typically give them?

What size files and file types do you typically print from or send out for printing if you use an outside source?

Thanks for all your help forum members.

[prncfarquad]

Normally after I am done I end up with a .jpg, sometimes I save the .psd if I have done a bunch of work on it so I won't lose all my layers etc.

File size depends on so many things, did you crop, how many effects, layers, etc you have done on it.

File size for clients depends on what rights you grant the client. If you are giving them permission for FB or other social media my files are normally small. if you sold them rights to full resolution images then they need to be full size

I send the original file for print, if it is 1mb or 15mb I send the original size. remember, if your image is small file size and web quality you aren't going to get a very nice print in my experience.

hope this helps

[Karebear98]

Thanks....I am normally ending up with anywhere from 5-7mb, sometimes 9mb after all edits are done. Is this high enough to print good quality up to 11X17??

[Mask]

Size matters based on original, adjustments, number of copies, and workflow ...

For Phase One MFDSLR 60 MP Raw -
My workflow is Capture 1 or PS. Save in Tiff and work copy "Print" in PS JPEG.
It can be up to 1GB per picture often for all files created.

For Canon 5dc -
My workflow is PS. 1. Open Raw in Camera Raw ; 2. Open in CS3 and adjust {save in Tiff or PSD} ; 3. Open in elements and save as jpeg in as many as a few copies. Print in JPEG. This is like 50 - 100 MB total for all files created.

Note your question on printing ...
Its not file size but DPI and image size that really matters as well as your printer.
For "Pro" level prints always size image for the size you want and use 300 or more DPI.
For "Good" level you can go down to 200 DPI and for acceptable 150.

[Karebear98]

Wow...not sure what I am doing wrong then to end up with a file as small as 5-7mb for one pic compared to your 50-100 mb!! Hmmm, this concerns me if this is what is necessary to print high quality portrait photography.

[hue-e]

I'm one of those people that has to feel like I can always go back to a file. In graphic design, I save my source (.ai, .indd or .psd) then export out a high res version (.jpg or .tif), then a web version (.jpg or .png) then print to a .pdf file.

Drives aren't tiny these days, I recommend saving in whatever formats you'll use in a project, but never flattening my art and saving over it. Just make sure your flattened versions are copies of the original.

In my experience, there are ALWAYS changes... and I hate doing things twice.

[hue-e]

also, keep in mind you'll normally deal in one of two resolutions.

72dpi... web... anything on the web. if it goes on Facebook, resize your photo to 700x700px @ 72dpi. FB resizes it to that and if you don't do that yourself, it sometimes reprocesses it improperly. As for other sites, just size it to what you want it displayed at.

300dpi... print... don't be fooled, you don't need anything bigger than that, but as a standard rule, just stick to 300dpi. I promise you won't notice a difference in the final print. Scale your image down to the size you need... but never scale up, you'll lose quality.

last bit of advice I can give you is... whatever the purpose of the photo/art, save yourself at least a little space and resize it to that whether it's web or print. this is especially true for web. If you put a 1000px x 1000px on your website and only needed 300x300, it will still be loading the 1000px file, but display at 300px. You're not getting any better quality out of that huge image, just slowing the pages load time down considerably. As for print... like I said, always save your layered .psd file, then export all your other images from that.

[hue-e]

Originally Posted by Mask

Size matters based on original, adjustments, number of copies, and workflow ...

For Phase One MFDSLR 60 MP Raw -
My workflow is Capture 1 or PS. Save in Tiff and work copy "Print" in PS JPEG.
It can be up to 1GB per picture often for all files created.

For Canon 5dc -
My workflow is PS. 1. Open Raw in Camera Raw ; 2. Open in CS3 and adjust {save in Tiff or PSD} ; 3. Open in elements and save as jpeg in as many as a few copies. Print in JPEG. This is like 50 - 100 MB total for all files created.

Note your question on printing ...
Its not file size but DPI and image size that really matters as well as your printer.
For "Pro" level prints always size image for the size you want and use 300 or more DPI.
For "Good" level you can go down to 200 DPI and for acceptable 150.

I recommend doing everything in PS... the "save for web" function actually produces a better photo than diong a "save as" or "export" to jpg.

[Karebear98]

Mask....sorry re-read what you wrote...I see you said for all files created.

Hue-e...sounds like your method is a lot like what I learned in my graphics/dig. photog classes as I save the psd, ai or whatever then a big jpeg and then a small jpeg for web/email use. Gotcha on the dpi...300 for print. 72 for web, I know I learned that but forgot.

The facebook stuff you posted could explain why when I posted some of my pics to facebook I got these weird wavy/pixelated looking lines in a girls blue dress and her hair. Kind of a swirly looking pattern....compression maybe?

[revjvegas]

Don't be overly shocked by Lee's larger file size; he is using a 60MP camera after all, thus there is way more data to those images.

Here's my rough comparison for what it's worth...

I have an image of a waterfall I took with my 10mp camera.
The photo size is 2592x3872 JPEG and takes about 9.6mb of space on disk. There wasn't a lot of PP other than color correction and the like.

I printed it 13x19 on my R1900 and it looks great.

I've not printed any portrait type pictures that big yet, so I've nothing there to compare it to.

And +1 to what Lee said, its about DPI when you print, not so much the file size.

That's not to say that file size doesn't matter at all.
I mean, you're not going to be able to take an image that's say 640x480 and expect to get a good 11x15 print from it.

[Karebear98]

It's good to know for my nature/architecture photography revj, thanks for the input. Wow on the 60mp, I have a canon rebel. lol

[revjvegas]

Originally Posted by Mask

...
For Canon 5dc -
My workflow is PS. 1. Open Raw in Camera Raw ; 2. Open in CS3 and adjust {save in Tiff or PSD} ; 3. Open in elements and save as jpeg in as many as a few copies. Print in JPEG. This is like 50 - 100 MB total for all files created.....

Whoops...I missed the Canon part entirely...sorry.

That's more a representation of the MP level I was referring to in my earlier post.

[hue-e]

Originally Posted by Karebear98

Mask....sorry re-read what you wrote...I see you said for all files created.

Hue-e...sounds like your method is a lot like what I learned in my graphics/dig. photog classes as I save the psd, ai or whatever then a big jpeg and then a small jpeg for web/email use. Gotcha on the dpi...300 for print. 72 for web, I know I learned that but forgot.

The facebook stuff you posted could explain why when I posted some of my pics to facebook I got these weird wavy/pixelated looking lines in a girls blue dress and her hair. Kind of a swirly looking pattern....compression maybe?

RE: facebook... yeah, if your image is bigger than what fb would process it to, it will reprocess it kinda funky, which will result in them putting whatever compression setting their server designates. now I may be wrong, but when I resize/export photos myself out of PS, I see little to no difference from what I originally exported when I upload to FB.

[Bob_S]

I only save what I have time invested in. So I save my RAW files as well as any PSD files that I happen to use. The generated JPG files get sent to their destination and then deleted.

For FB i export the longest side to 640 and go 72 ppi. As Patrick said above, if you give FB a big file it will turn it to crap nine times out of ten.

For prints I upload the full-size JPG at 240 ppi.