Times Changing

Looking at the latest Upload Requirements for fotoLibra it's interesting that some of the basics are changing significantly.

They want 8 bit files as virtually no-one wants the slight quality increase from 16 bit. They want RGB JPEG files only, albeit is at Quality 12. They want 300ppi only, as before. They want no sharpening and preferably no resampling either.

The most interesting thing is that the lossless TIFF is just abandoned in favour of the lossy JPEG. Clearly now JPEG files are more than good enough and they have in fact converted all the existing images on file.

Hi john i received an email a while ago asking users of photo libra if they wanted to upload only jpegs as their clients only seem to want them.Which begs the question should i only start saving jpegs and get rid of my TIFF's and just keep PEF's and JPEG's.I was quite a fan of the TIFF until i got the PEF codec for windows vista off ttk and now i can view my RAW files in windows

This is now a good question but for the time being I'm keeping a full sized uncompressed TIFF of all my completed images, unsharpened, from which I will make whatever JPEGs are required.

Regarding sharpening, fotoLibra don't want any at the output stage, but say that in-camera sharpening is acceptable. Another reversal of what we might expect.

I think this is a reflection of the fact that things move very quickly in the digital world and what we found necessary yesterday has now changed.

I think i will keep my TIFF's too.How can they tell about the sharpening wheather its in camera or at the output stage?I am quite used to the work flow that i use now as i've used it for ages i make a 16bit TIFF then change the view to 8bit so i can make my JPEG

They say they can spot output sharpening and that it's obvious. Apparently sharpening is a Bad Thing To Do. Sharpening is applied prior to the actual book printing, I suppose to maintain consistency throughout the book.

As for 16 bit there are too many things that can't be done and the file sizes are larger. In the end it has to be 8 bit anyway.

Of course much of this is academic unless we are making big images.

of course certain camera brands oversharpen in camera so....

Canon by any chance

You might think that, I couldn't possibly comment...