DJ72 Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 Hello All So, with my new Sony camera it turns out I cant preview raw files with current Lightroom 5.7.1 set up Options are to upgrade to Lightroom 6, or use a dng conversion. I am not sure what that is, so wanted to ask if anyone here has a view This thread https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1942873 suggests that quality is not necessarily lost: "There are both lossy and lossless conversions available in the DNG converter. You can choose the lossless conversion" Would configuring the DBG conversion be an idea or should I put my hand in my pocket for LR 6? Just looking at Capture One now, I see its free for those who dont need the Pro version. Thanks, David . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 I'm not sure that you're going to have the option to buy Lightroom 6 for long, it used to be hard to find on the Adobe website but now it looks like it's disappeared altogether: https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/download-install/kb/lightroom-downloads.html You can still download 6.14 from there provided you've actually paid for it somehow but I see John Lewis won't sell it online anymore and I don't think Amazon do either. A couple of weeks ago you could still buy a 'download voucher' for the full Lightroom 6 in my local John Lewis which would work. As you probably know, your camera is supported in 6.14 as are most Sony's but the very latest ones will need a subscription plan: https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/camera-raw/kb/camera-raw-plug-supported-cameras.html I can't help with the dng question but for me the cataloguing side of Lightroom is invaluable so I would miss that if I had to switch to Capture One for example, but as you say the Fuji and Sony versions of that are free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 I don't know whether it is the case now but it used to be that in order to get the standalone Lightroom you had to begin by buying the subscription and then in the process there was a choice for the standalone before you paid. They were definitely hiding it but it was there. Paulette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 8 minutes ago, NYCat said: it used to be that in order to get the standalone Lightroom you had to begin by buying the subscription Yes, I agree, and it's worth looking but I don't think they had that message about not selling or supporting Lightroom 6 any longer and it was easily available online from John Lewis and Amazon. Get it while you can I think. I don't know how helpful they are with transferring a licence number when buying secondhand, there did used to be a procedure where that would work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 ...looks like it's gone from Amazon UK now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 4 hours ago, DJ72 said: Hello All So, with my new Sony camera it turns out I cant preview raw files with current Lightroom 5.7.1 set up Options are to upgrade to Lightroom 6, or use a dng conversion. I am not sure what that is, so wanted to ask if anyone here has a view This thread https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1942873 suggests that quality is not necessarily lost: "There are both lossy and lossless conversions available in the DNG converter. You can choose the lossless conversion" Would configuring the DBG conversion be an idea or should I put my hand in my pocket for LR 6? Just looking at Capture One now, I see its free for those who dont need the Pro version. Thanks, David . Given that you have obviously invested a significant amount of money in new kit, you are really doing yourself down by attempting to skimp on the software which is just as important in terms of the final product as your sensor or lens. There have been some major advances in Lightroom CC over LR6 (which appears to be no longer available anyway) and it is well worth the £10 a month for the subscription - you also get full Photoshop as part of the deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 If you do go for Classic CC then make sure your computer is up to it before you do. This site is good: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/whats-new-in-lightroom-classic-80/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ72 Posted March 21, 2019 Author Share Posted March 21, 2019 thanks, I went ahead and downloaded, after a bit of trickery, Capture One. I never used LR for much else than converting raw and adding some vibrancy. i will have a play with C1 as soon as my boss leaves for his meeting in about half an hour😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 3 hours ago, DJ72 said: I went ahead and downloaded, after a bit of trickery, Capture One If you like it you might be interested in the Sony Pro version for £109 for a limited time only: https://www.captureone.com/en/store Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ72 Posted March 22, 2019 Author Share Posted March 22, 2019 thanks for that Harry H. Do you use it? The Pro version I mean. The thing is, with LR I could set the image size in MB when exporting (ideal for Alamy). But with this "express" version, all i see is sliding scale for "quality", which might be a tad too arbitrary. I am not sure though, will need to test more out. Actually, now I have checked, pretty much all the original raws are 42MB in size (wow). So this export size shouldnt be an issue. I have image size in LR set to 9MB, which means they come out at around 4MB - 5MB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 2 hours ago, DJ72 said: Do you use it? No, I don't use it I'm afraid, too rooted to Lightroom, I tried out the Fuji Express (free) version to see what the RAW files were like. However I don't really follow the rest of your post, you shouldn't really be using the 'Limit file size to' option in Lightroom as that will give you a variable and undetermined decrease in quality and in any case there is no need to, your files are fine for Alamy anyway. The upper limit used to be 200MB Tiffs, so a 67MP camera if you like, that limit might have gone anyway. The 'quality' slider in Capture One is similar to the one in LR in that it gives you smaller jpeg file sizes through greater compression. Alamy say to save at 100% but without wanting to incriminate myself slightly lower than 100% should be fine and the file size on disc (and upload time) will be considerably less. I don't think Capture One even gives you the option to save files to a fixed MB size on disc but for resizing you would be looking at the 'Scale' option below so that you can reduce the file to a fixed pixel dimension if you wanted to (so choose Long Side perhaps). My camera doesn't give files as large yours but you might ask other high-end Sony users if they reduce the pixel dimensions of their files before uploading to Alamy, your sensor is 7952 x 5304 pixels which is pretty large considering the main market for Alamy images. Bear in mind that the minimum file size is 17MB uncompressed which equates to around 3000 x 2000 pixels. If you were uploading to News then you would definitely downsize of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 37 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said: pretty large considering the main market for Alamy images. No it isn't. Besides what is the main market? British newspapers? If that's the main market, it pays pennies. Think of 4K televisions and monitors; think of the upcoming Olympics next year after which we will all want 8K = 7680×4320px. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 8 minutes ago, wiskerke said: Think of 4K televisions and monitors Surely 4K is much smaller? Do you see the 8K TV market being a significant sales area for Alamy stock and would that mean that you actually had to match that resolution or that images with less resolution wouldn't be usable on that format? I'm not saying you're wrong, just something I don't know about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 1 minute ago, Harry Harrison said: Surely 4K is much smaller? Do you see the 8K TV market being a significant sales area for Alamy stock and would that mean that you actually had to match that resolution or that images with less resolution wouldn't be usable on that format? I'm not saying you're wrong, just something I don't know about. I have no crystal ball, but I don't think one needs one: Not a whole lot of things are getting smaller in the world. (Leaving out UK joke here). 4K became the accepted standard so much quicker than Full HD; 8K will not be different from that. So 5G and 8K will be the driving forces for a couple of years to come. And if it's not the Olympics, it will be the World Cup. If you have higher resolution images on Alamy you'll see [FS] in your Pseudonym Summary every day. My guess is that they are not looking for a small file. For me it's not like a whole lot, just 4-5 a day maybe. Then again not all my files are bigger, I also use my 20 megapixel RX100 and upload from that. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ72 Posted March 22, 2019 Author Share Posted March 22, 2019 Harry, i was told to reduce the size since, in the Alamy guide it says File size of over 17MB (when uncompressed/open) Your JPEG file is likely to have a compressed size of 3-5MB. Opening a JPEG in an image program such as Adobe Photoshop will show you the uncompressed/open file size. So, are you saying that I can submit jpgs of, say, 20MB? When I say "20MB" I (think) I am referring to compressed - its the size I see when looking at the file in windows file explorer. Thanks for clearing this up, if you can! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 26 minutes ago, DJ72 said: So, are you saying that I can submit jpgs of, say, 20MB The quick answer is yes, you can. That 17MB minimum size is the uncompressed size when open in Photoshop and equates to a relatively low resolution image of around 3000 x 2000 pixels. You are confusing that figure with the size of the actual file that you see in Windows Explorer, the file size of the resulting jpeg, and it is an easy mistake to make at first because they are both expressed in MB. You don't need to downsize your Sony files at all, just save them as a jpeg at a high quality setting, certainly don't limit them to an arbitrary file size as I think you have been doing. I don't know what size the resulting jpegs will be as it will depend upon their content (lots of detail/tones means larger file sizes) but there is no limit as far as Alamy is concerned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 6 minutes ago, DJ72 said: Harry, i was told to reduce the size since, in the Alamy guide it says File size of over 17MB (when uncompressed/open) Your JPEG file is likely to have a compressed size of 3-5MB. Opening a JPEG in an image program such as Adobe Photoshop will show you the uncompressed/open file size. So, are you saying that I can submit jpgs of, say, 20MB? When I say "20MB" I (think) I am referring to compressed - its the size I see when looking at the file in windows file explorer. Thanks for clearing this up, if you can! Checking my recent uploads, 39MB compressed is no problem. One is 6048x6581px stitched and stacked panorama image from an RX100; another is a 7196x9220px stitched panorama of 3 shifted images with a 17mm TS from my A7RII. I was slightly worried about the 50M one that was only 😉 5238x7936px stitched and stacked hdr panorama from the A7RII. The jpeg turned out that large because there was a lot of detail and still some noise in the image, like Harry said. Long ago sometimes I had to lower the jpg quality because an image failed to be processed. I've always thought that was utterly stupid not wise. If there's currently an upper limit, I have yet to hit it. This 6144 x 5056px one was once rejected by a client of Alamy, because the resolution was not enough according to their printer. The client contacted me directly and I had to refer them to another photographer as I had urgent family matters. Probably because of this service, the image was not refunded. Could be they took pity on me of course. That image or it's sister did make it on to a German calendar, so that's the sort of use you must be thinking of. And yes size does matter. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 17 minutes ago, wiskerke said: 17mm TS from my A7RII Wim Off-topic so apologies in advance but such a niche question it's not worth creating a new topic - do you get the full shift range on the Sony, wondered if the adapter might affect things? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 2 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said: Wim Off-topic so apologies in advance but such a niche question it's not worth creating a new topic - do you get the full shift range on the Sony, wondered if the adapter might affect things? Range is 100% but corners can get quite dark. The main difficulty is getting the center sharp. I know it's very counter intuitive, but that's a serious challenge. Probably something to do with floating elements and all adapters being a bit too short. I use the 17mm with a Metabones IV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 23 minutes ago, wiskerke said: Range is 100% but corners can get quite dark. Thank you very much for that, always wondered. I'm not thinking of moving from Canon currently but it's good to know that I could move to Sony. A fantastic piece of glass, if terrifyingly vulnerable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 1 minute ago, Harry Harrison said: Thank you very much for that, always wondered. I'm not thinking of moving from Canon currently but it's good to know that I could move to Sony. A fantastic piece of glass, if terrifyingly vulnerable. Yes. I keep the cap on its string attached to one of the knobs and always on the lens unless I'm looking or shooting through it. That second one is a full up; center and down shift. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 1 minute ago, wiskerke said: That second one is a full up; center and down shift. Yes, beautiful picture, very hard to control with all those curves going on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 ....and 9220 pixels, cripes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ72 Posted March 25, 2019 Author Share Posted March 25, 2019 thank you to both for letting me understand this better. i wont be reducing file size any more for Alamy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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