JPEG Settings for D800

psdrage

Hi All

Let me firstly start by saying 'I Shoot RAW' as Jared Polin would say.

However, I have resolved to always carry my DSLR with me as a way to improve my photography. This has lead me to use the D800 rather than my iPhone for snapshots, ebay photos etc. Having to process the raw files is a pain for Social Media etc.

Therefore I was thinking of shooting RAW + JPEG with the JPEG's going to my Eye-Fi Card for easy transfer to mobile phone etc.

I was wondering what the community used for JPEG Settings.

My thoughts were as follows:-

JPEG - Large + Fine + Optimal Compression
Picture Control - Standard
Colour Space - sRGB

However what are peoples thoughts about:-

Active D Lighting (Auto / Extra High / High / Normal / Low)
Vignette Control (Low / Normal / High)
Auto Distortion Control
High ISO NR (Low / Normal / High)

Despite being for Web / Social Media and Sharing with Friends etc I still want my photos to look as good as they can but without the need to process in Lightroom.

Regards

Peter

Ironheart

I would set d-lighting to auto, add a touch of sharpness, picture control to vivid,high ISO NR on normal, small (large is overkill for web, PAD is 800px, and it is fine). Everyone is going to have different settings here depending on what they photograph, and how they want them to look.

Photobug

psdrage said:
My thoughts were as follows:-

JPEG - Large + Fine + Optimal Compression
Picture Control - Standard
Colour Space - sRGB

However what are peoples thoughts about:-

Active D Lighting (Auto / Extra High / High / Normal / Low)
Vignette Control (Low / Normal / High)
Auto Distortion Control
High ISO NR (Low / Normal / High

I like JPEG large + fine. Don't like picture control vivid except when I need it which is rare. sRGB is correct.

I use to use Active D Lighting on normal and recently switched to auto when I was doing a lot of river streams. I use High ISO NR at Normal.

kyoshinikon

Just No... That is wrong...

In all seriousness Shoot Jpegs at

Fine resolution, Large, Lossless
Colorspace is Adobe RGB
No Active D lighting
Neutral is better than vivid
No Vignette control

Ironheart

Why large for web/social media? You have the NEF if you want more pixels and eye-fi will be much faster with small...

I was joking about vivid, a kinda shout-out to KR.

FlowtographyBerlin

In all seriousness Shoot Jpegs at
Fine resolution, Large, Lossless

"Fine" is not the resolution, but the compression, "large" refers to the resolution. And, most of all: There is no lossless JPEG compression...

The logic to turn off everything, shoot "neutral" and use Adobe RGB is not correct in my eyes: This might be cool for getting the highest-quality JPEG file to fiddle with later, but without post this will get you rather muddy and, well, neutral-looking images. To my understanding @psdrage was asking for the settings to get the best-looking out-of–camera shots, in other words, already auto-processed to look good without further ado. Plus, if you want the most neutral result for further post-processing, you have the RAW anyway.

Thus, you exactly need all those settings that you'd avoid normally because you'd apply them yourself in LR. So, DO use sRGB (looks a LOT less muddy Adobe RGB), Active-D, vignette control, and, depending on the situation, even VIVID mode. I'd also agree with @Ironheart to use the "small" setting, plus you might wanna experiment with the in-camera sharpening setting.

One thing to check out: Shoot a motive with some higher contrast (light to dark) in all three compression modes (basic, normal, fine) and then process them in Lightroom and check out the highlight / shadow recovery potential. I discovered that there's actually no real visible loss in quality between normal and fine, so whenever I shoot JPEG, I shoot "normal" – even if I want post-processable JPEGs, and, not like you, social-media-ready images.

TaoTeJared

LOL - this thread could get interesting

I shoot Jpeg large/fine for family, walk around stuff, and for anything that I'm never going to show or sell. I almost never shoot Raw + Jpeg as it to me, just wastes space. If I do for immediate sharing (Eye-fi) I shoot Raw + Jpeg basic so I can edit the files on my iphone and just post them. Quite frankly, unless I'm shooting a scene with huge dynamic range, I rarely can tell the difference between Raw and Jpeg at ISOs below 800 or so. If you are never going to do any major edits then I would say skip Raw. The D800 files are rich enough and have a great leeway for basic edits.

I kind of dislike these threads since it comes off as a "Set it and forget it" infomercial. We call items from infomercials Garbage since they really don't do anything great, but are ok at a few things and just get buy at others. Camera settings are there to be changed, not to set it and never move from it. Some settings may be great for one situation but not great for others. This is Digital - all the settings can be changed from shot to shot and should be considered to be changed. Each setting can be part of "your look" when the files are pumped out. Because of that there is no real "best" settings - but just preferences.

End goal is important. Keep this in mind with each setting.

sRGB is the base color space for web files - if you are only going to upload straight to the web shoot in this space.
Adobe RGB is a different standard that works (to my eye) better for prints and the color space is shifted a bit from what you see in sRGB. Only a few web browsers will show the correct Adobe RGB color of a photo on web posts.
Adobe RGB vs. sRGB - I have read so many articles over the years and never have found any true overwhelming consensus for either. The only real consensus I have found was, pick one and stick with it, as it is just something you don't have to remember to compensate for in your workflow.

Fine, Normal, Basic
If I'm just practicing or mostly with friends I shoot Jpeg Basic files or normal settings. I just don't see the point in wasting space. I do change to "fine" or "Raw" when I see a real good shot. You can always change a setting. Oh and once you send a file to Instagram, Snapseed, or other phone app, you basically kill all the "richness" of the D800 file anyway. I throw almost all my Eyefi files through Snapseed, VSCOcam, Photoforge2 or PaintFX and they strip D800 goodness away and apply their "overlay" - Basic is all that is needed.

Active D lighting - If you want to pull out shadows and not have blown out skies turn this on to something. My style of shooting I want strong contrast and let elements get blown out, be very shady to black. Because of that, I always have it turned off to controol the image more. For snapshots I turn it on auto.

Auto Distortion Control & Vignette Control - I leave this always on and set to normal (where you have the choice.) I have never seen this as a "correct" or "incorrect" setting.

High ISO NR - usually on, usually set to High for snapshots. For work or stuff I'm going to edit I have it set to low or off to retain detail.

Vivid/Portrait/Neutral, etc.
This is really a personal taste.
I shoot in two settings: I personally like Portrait the most with the saturation two clicks up, contrast 4 clicks up and the rest set to the middle. I also will shoot in Neutral with the saturation bumped all the way up and everything set to auto or middle for architecture and landscapes.

FlowtographyBerlin

+1 for TTJ. Nailed it.