Blurred JPEGS

peterridding · April 26, 2009

Hi everyone

This is not the debate about RAW v JPEGS but a question that has been annoying me for months, and I can't find the answer here in the forums.

My RAW shots look good on my monitor after PP. I then convert them to JPEGS. The JPEGS always look blurry. Can anyone, PLEASE tell me the reason for this?

Cheers,

Peter.

dbcooper · April 26, 2009

It may be a sharpening problem. As you know, RAW images are not sharpened in the camera, while camera-generated jpgs are. A monitor will not properly show sharpening results properly at magnification much under 1:1 (or more), as a monitor is not capable of the necessary resolution. Otherwise, you don't mention if you're resizing. With any resizing, resharpening is usually needed.

Matt Laur · April 26, 2009

How aggressively are you compressing the JPGs? If you have the compression cranked up (which reduces the size of the file), it will rob the image of fine detail. You can have a nice, detailed-looking JPG in a fairly large file, or you can have a smaller file with less detail and some posterization - but you can't have it both ways, I'm afraid. Something has to give when you remove data from the image. So, check your compression settings. Also: are you creating JPGs at the same resolution as the RAW file, or are you also changing the size of the image (say, to make it appropriate for on-screen viewing)? If you're down sampling a 3500-pixel-wide image to something that 700 pixels wide in the same step that you're creating the JPG, you're going to have to make another sharpening pass after you change the resolution. Because, again, you're throwing out some data, and sharpness will be lost.

david_lau3 · April 26, 2009

In another forum I came across the same question. The answer for that one is due to poor resizing of the viewer.

Try a test:

1. Open a RAW image, edit and sharpen to your taste.

2. Save as jpeg using highest quality but do not close the RAW yet. Blow the RAW up to 100%.

3. Re-open the jpeg just saved, blow it up to 100% and compare it with the RAW image side by side.

4. If the sharpness is the same for RAW and Jpeg at 100%, then it is the problem of the viewer. When a large size image is resized to a smaller size, it becomes blurry. If the viewer does not sharpen the resized image appropriately, it becomes less sharp (yes, the viewer will have to resize temporarily to display a larger image on a smaller screen)

peterblaise · April 26, 2009

.

Peter,

Tell us more, and in the process, you will answer your own questions.

<ul>

<li>-- what original specifications are you starting with - camera, image dimensions (pixels across x down), bit depth ...? </li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>-- how are you saving as JPG - what program and program settings?</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>-- are you also resizing -- by what method, and to what size?</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>-- are you sharpening? How? </li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>-- where are you seeing blur -- screen (at what magnification?) or print? </li>

</ul>

Show us some samples, too.

.

peterridding · April 26, 2009

Thank you for your answers.

I am not resizing, and I am saving the JPEG at highest possible setting.

David, there is some difference in the 100% view between the RAW and JPEG, but not much.

Workflow Peter: Canon 450D taking RAW, using DPP to PP with sharpening set to 10 (highest), white balance, colour,etc. changes if needed. Using DPP to convert to JPEG. Seeing the blur at normal size.

I can't post the two examples as the RAW has to be converted to JPEG anyway, to post.

I will post the JPEG, if that is any help.

peterridding · April 26, 2009

and the 100% crop<div>

00TBO0-128703584.jpg.c15a4c2800abe0fa37315b42a97d20ef.jpg

</div>

peterblaise · April 27, 2009

.

Peter,

Some thoughts.

Please download ANY EXIF reader and inspect the results of your JPG saves -- what qualities are really in them?

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=read+exif+compression">http://www.google.com/search?q=read+exif+compression</a> </li>

</ul>

I like:

<h3 ><a onmousedown="return rwt(this,'','','res','1','AFQjCNFSTUdBT9komGkhh-LnH_11sE01tg','')" href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.photome.de%2F&ei=fLn1SbPSKIi0NYmUuakL&usg=AFQjCNFSTUdBT9komGkhh-LnH_11sE01tg" target="_blank" >PhotoME - Exif, IPTC & ICC Metadata Editor</a>

</h3>

PhotoME : exif, iptc, icc, digital, photo, photography, meta, data, editor, exifeditor, iptceditor, viewer, view, reader, read, software, digicam, camera, ... <a href="http://www.photome.de/"><cite>http://www.photome .de/</cite> </a>

</blockquote>

Please translate your chosen settings into non-software-jargon absolutes. When you say "highest possible setting" that is meaningless and ambiguous. Do you mean:

<ul>

<li>"quality at the highest possible setting (least compression )" </li>

</ul>

... or do you mean:

<ul>

<li>"compression at highest possible setting (least quality )"?</li>

</ul>

Yes, you can share 1:1 pixel crops from Raw and JPG -- just do NOTHING to the Raw but convert and save at ZERO JPG compression, but do whatever you do to the typical JPG comparison sample you create to show us your typical JPG, but your above example seems useful to me nonetheless. Also, feel free to load your images elsewhere on the web and refer to them -- Flickr, for instance, permits unlimited image file sizes.

Free <a href="http://www.irfanview.com/">http://www.irfanview.com/</a> shows your examples here are Compression - 6 (JPG) - huh? Free <a href="http://www.PhotoMe.de/">http://www.PhotoMe.de/</a> shows Adobe Photoshop, Quality: 12 . Something else must be wrong -- do you do intermediate saves at other compression levels? You must know you cannot get back anything lost, so always save from master, not from a copy. That is, do not load, save at 50% quality for one task, then while still open, save at 100% quality for another purpose -- you'll get 100% of 50% quality.

Did you accept resizing to 72dpi at anytime, or drop the mode to 16 colors (not 16 bit) at any time?

I'm hunting for any possible reason for your images to look smeared to me. Tell us more, more, more, and try as many different things, including NOT Photoshop, as possible until you figure this out.

I think (I'm guessing) that you may somewhere have set the JPG compression rather high, not the JPG quality -- the results looks very much like mosaic or pastel blurring or smoothing. Very nice, but probably not what you are after. Try using ANY other Raw to JPG converter, including IrfanView, which allows a clearly labeled and meaningful setting:

<ul>

<li>JPG Save Quality: low --- % --- good </li>

</ul>

... with 100% at the "good" end meaning quality is good is 100%.

Let us know if you share your master copies at full resolution anywhere (photo.net prefers 100kb samples only, but yours are 178 kb and 127 kb, so I guess that 100kb is a miscible limit here!), and let us know if you resolve this. Heck, just TRY setting the JPG setting opposite your previous choices and see if the results are higher or lower quality. Let us know.

----------

<a href="http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00T/00TBNe-128701584.jpg">http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00T/00TBNe-128701584.jpg</a>

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=3975602">Peter Ridding</a> , Apr 26, 2009; 08:46 p.m. jpeg resized 178 kb

Encoder Adobe Photoshop, Quality: 12 Adobe Lightroom, Quality: 93% - 100% and maybe some other software or cameras Encoder Signature 5379E0133D4439B6F7C7039FC7F7734F:111111 Color Mode RGB color Subsampling ratio of Y to C YCbCr4:4:4 Encoding Process Baseline DCT, Huffman coding Bits per Sample 8 bps Image Height 400 px Image Width 600 px Number of image components in frame 3 comp.

Make - Canon Model - Canon EOS 450D Orientation - Top left XResolution - 350.00 YResolution - 350.00 ResolutionUnit - Inch Software - Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 (20060914.r.77) Windows DateTime - 2009:04:27 10:50:17 WhitePoint - 0.31 PrimaryChromaticities - 0.64 YCbCrCoefficients - 0.30 YCbCrPositioning - Centered ExifOffset - 388 ExposureTime - 1/45 seconds FNumber - 5.60 ISOSpeedRatings - 100 ExifVersion - 0221 DateTimeOriginal - 2009:01:19 06:17:20 DateTimeDigitized - 2009:01:19 06:17:20 ComponentsConfiguration - YCbCr ShutterSpeedValue - 1/45 seconds ApertureValue - F 5.66 ExposureBiasValue - 0 Flash - Flash not fired, compulsory flash mode FocalLength - 21 mm UserComment - FlashPixVersion - 0100 ColorSpace - Unknown (0xFFFFFFFF) ExifImageWidth - 600 ExifImageHeight - 400 InteroperabilityOffset - 1084 FocalPlaneXResolution - 4865.60 FocalPlaneYResolution - 4876.71 FocalPlaneResolutionUnit - Inch CustomRendered - Normal process ExposureMode - Auto White Balance - Auto SceneCaptureType - Standard Thumbnail: - Compression - 6 (JPG) XResolution - 72 YResolution - 72 ResolutionUnit - Inch JpegIFOffset - 1234 JpegIFByteCount - 4475

----------

<a href="http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00T/00TBO0-128703584.jpg">http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00T/00TBO0-128703584.jpg</a>

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=3975602">Peter Ridding</a> , Apr 26, 2009; 08:55 p.m. 100% crop 127 kb

Encoder Adobe Photoshop, Quality: 12 Adobe Lightroom, Quality: 93% - 100% and maybe some other software or cameras Encoder Signature 5379E0133D4439B6F7C7039FC7F7734F:111111 Color Mode RGB color Subsampling ratio of Y to C YCbCr4:4:4 Encoding Process Baseline DCT, Huffman coding Bits per Sample 8 bps Image Height 400 px Image Width 600 px Number of image components in frame 3 comp.

Make - Canon Model - Canon EOS 450D Orientation - Top left XResolution - 350.00 YResolution - 350.00 ResolutionUnit - Inch Software - Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 (20060914.r.77) Windows DateTime - 2009:04:27 10:52:54 WhitePoint - 0.31 PrimaryChromaticities - 0.64 YCbCrCoefficients - 0.30 YCbCrPositioning - Centered ExifOffset - 388 ExposureTime - 1/45 seconds FNumber - 5.60 ISOSpeedRatings - 100 ExifVersion - 0221 DateTimeOriginal - 2009:01:19 06:17:20 DateTimeDigitized - 2009:01:19 06:17:20 ComponentsConfiguration - YCbCr ShutterSpeedValue - 1/45 seconds ApertureValue - F 5.66 ExposureBiasValue - 0 Flash - Flash not fired, compulsory flash mode FocalLength - 21 mm UserComment - FlashPixVersion - 0100 ColorSpace - Unknown (0xFFFFFFFF) ExifImageWidth - 600 ExifImageHeight - 400 InteroperabilityOffset - 1084 FocalPlaneXResolution - 4865.60 FocalPlaneYResolution - 4876.71 FocalPlaneResolutionUnit - Inch CustomRendered - Normal process ExposureMode - Auto White Balance - Auto SceneCaptureType - Standard Thumbnail: - Compression - 6 (JPG) XResolution - 72 YResolution - 72 ResolutionUnit - Inch JpegIFOffset - 1234 JpegIFByteCount - 2702

----------

It LOOKS as if you have Adobe Photoshop, Quality: 12 , so I can only imagine what's wrong. If I were to artificially make my images as "soft" in the JPG, I'd have to have some artificial effects also engaged. So, I suggest using anything BUT Adobe Photoshop to test, and see if the results are better. If so, then next troubleshoot Adobe Photoshop, as that is where the trouble lies -- corrupt INI or DLL, remove and reinstall the whole thing? If not, if ANY program makes "soft" JPGs, then tell us more and we'll keep at it.

.

phule · April 27, 2009

This looks more like overly aggressive noise reduction than anything.

peterridding · April 28, 2009

Peter, WOW, this is thorough! I will need a few days to get my head around it all, and report back.

Rob, don't believe I did any noise reduction, but will check.

Don't go away.

Thanks,

Peter.

peterblaise · April 28, 2009

.

Good point, Rob, overly aggressive noise reduction will smear details, perhaps in Raw conversion?

Yet, we're still not confident we see original Raw and JPGs accurately from Peter Ridding yet.

More?

.

peterridding · April 29, 2009

Hi Peter and Rob.

Peter, I did set the JPG conversion on DPP to the highest quality (lowest compression) which is 10.

I did not resize to 72dpi or drop colours to 16. I think with this particular image I did try to sharpen in Elements 5 as well, that is where you are getting my save at 12, which I do.

However, to be clinical, I should upload a fresh image, and know exactly what I have done, which is usually sharpen in DPP and adjust colour, white balance, etc and then convert and save to JPG at quality 10.

I see you want me to convert an untouched RAW file with no compression to JPG. Is this correct? The image will be really blurred won't it, not having any sharpening?

Also, upon viewing my image above in the RAW format at 100%, the rocks are somewhat blurred there too, so I guess it carried over to the JPG.

I have a sharp RAW file that I can convert, should I do this, or the above?

Thanks for all this time and effort.

peterblaise · April 29, 2009

.

Hello again Peter Ridding,

Raw in and of themselves are not "really blurred", but having been filtered through the antialiasing filter and then being demosaiced, they are not sharper then their smallest pixel, but they are NOT blurred by any means. Perhaps you are really only dealing with a blurry original picture , not a Raw-versus-JPG or workflow problem.

Did you know that free http://www.irfanview.com/ has an option to load Raw at 1/2 size thereby avoiding the time wasted demosaicing the RGGB sensor map? That should take your Canon 450D Raw 4,272 x 2,848 pixel images and immediately make clean 2,136 x 1,424 pixel images -- no need to sharpen or anything. Try that, compare that 1/2 size Raw to any resulting JPG from it.

In fact, open your Raw at 1/2 size with IrfanView, then immediately save as 100% JPG with no tweaking, and then open the JPG copy also, and compare Raw to JPG, back and forth, even at 100%.

<ul>

<li>If you see a clean Raw result, and a clean JPG result, then the blur you experienced before comes from elsewhere. </li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>If you see a blurry Raw, then you have a bad picture, stop trying to fight it and move on.</li>

</ul>

Let us know what come next.

.

bill_tuthill · April 30, 2009

So you saved as JPEG with DPP then saved the result again as JPEG with PS Elements? Don't do that. See Q&A number 10 in <a href="http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1/">the JPEG FAQ</a>. Can't DPP save in a lossless format such as TIFF? Maybe I misunderstood your workflow.

peterridding · April 30, 2009

Hello Peter

You may be onto something that I have totally overlooked, and really simple. The original RAW may be blurred!

I will take your suggestions further, will be in touch.

Many thanks so far!

Cheers,

Peter.

peterridding · May 1, 2009

Sorry, not blurred, out of focus.

peterblaise · May 1, 2009

.

Earlier: "... You may be onto something that I have totally overlooked, and really simple. The original RAW may be blurred! ... Sorry, not blurred, out of focus ... "

</blockquote>

Ahh, now, with THAT, we can help! ;-)

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=focus+fixing+software">http://www.google.com/search?q=focus+fixing+software</a> </li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>AutoFocus (Win/Mac) <a href="http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=graphicssoft&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.humansoftware.com%2Fpages1200%2FAutoFocus%2FHSautofocus0.html">http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=graphicssoft&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.humansoftware.com%2Fpages1200%2FAutoFocus%2FHSautofocus0.html</a> [Plug-in] Remove noise & grain, deblur, perform advanced sharpening, and remove JPEG artifacts. Works on RGB or CMYK Images. Windows or Macintosh plugin for Photoshop 5.5/6/7, Elements, Jasc Paint Shop Pro, Photo-Paint, Painter, Ulead PhotoImpact.</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>Focus Magic (Win) <a href="http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=graphicssoft&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.focusmagic.com%2F">http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=graphicssoft&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.focusmagic.com%2F</a> [standalone or plug-in] Image processing software to refocus and sharpen blurred photos. Also includes filters to defocus, increase resolution, remove speckles, and descreen. Shareware - $39US.</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>FocusFixer (Win/Mac) <a href="http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=graphicssoft&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fixerlabs.com%2Fpages%2Ffixer.html">http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=graphicssoft&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fixerlabs.com%2Fpages%2Ffixer.html</a> This plug-in removes focus blur, enhances blow-ups, and restores detail. US$57.</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>Refocus Imaging <a href="http://www.refocusimaging.com/about/">http://www.refocusimaging.com/about/</a> a Silicon Valley start-up, thinks its technology can be used to make cameras that can fix that problem -- after you take the photo.<a href="http://m.cnet.com.au/software/339286407.htm">http://m.cnet.com.au/software/339286407.htm</a> </li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>Recover Detail and Sharpen Your Blurred Photos <a href="http://www.focusmagic.com/">http://www.focusmagic.com/</a> Focus Magic uses advanced forensic strength deconvolution technology to literally "undo" blur and recover lost detail. It can repair both out-of-focus blur and motion blur (camera shake) in an image.</li>

</ul>

Enjoy!

Whew!

One down.

Let us know what happens NEXT!

.

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