Digital Photo Printing
So, how do I get the best clarity from my camera ?
1) Start with the highest quality image
- If you shoot JPEG, you are already limited to 8-bit color depth so at least
use the highest resolution available.
- With JPEG, the in-camera RGB conversion is limited to the demosaising in
your camera so take what you get.
- PhotoShop can greatly improve even JPEG, but no program can recover the
data lost in getting the JPEG from the RAW image.
- To get the highest clarity, shoot RAW, use 3rd party demosaising
software and process the images in 16-bit ProPhoto color space.
2) Use a Grey-Card to set the white balance
- The auto white-balance is generally very good, but an 18% reflectance
Grey-Card can provide a reference both while shooting and later in PhotoShop.
- The grey-card is especially useful when shooting in other than 6500-degK
light of a nice summer's day.
3) Shoot to the right
- Digital camera sensors are linear devices while our eyes are non-linear.
- Our eyes are more sensitive to intensity changes in shadow than bright light.
- So, maximize the use of the sensor's dynamic range by using the full
spectral range by shooting closer to over-exposure (but not blowing
the highlights) rather than underexposing the image.
- Use the camera's histogram to assure the best exposure.
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