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Best photo format to edit?

Ambrosia7177

Ambrosia7177

macrumors 68020
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Feb 6, 2016
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Tomorrow I am getting my COVID-19 portrait taken by a professional photographer.

The end product is a digital photo.

What format should I ask the photographer to shoot in and save the file as, so later on I can manipulate it? (I want to add a COVID-based caption at the bottom of my portrait, plus do various resizing for web and maybe other things like cards.)

Thanks.
 
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A COVID portrait? Never heard that before.

In any case For things like adding captions and resizing it really doesn’t matter all that much what format it is. Though when resizing, most quality can be preserved if you do clean doubling and divisions.

The significant editing like tone mapping should be done by the photographer and you should not specify a shooting format, though you can specify a delivery format.
If you do specify a delivery format and want the total freedom for post production yourself, specify that you would prefer getting both the final deliverables as well as the digital negatives or “RAW”s. - I would not advice just asking for the RAW files. Let the professional ‘develop’ them. As for finals, anything with low compression or even better lossless compression will do.
 
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A full res jpg will be fine. You can ask for some web sized images from the photographer.

you should not re-edit them other than adding whatever text you need. And even that I’d probably run by the photographer out of respect.
 
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casperes1996 said:
A COVID portrait? Never heard that before.
Click to expand...

Maybe I should have said, "A pandemic portrait."


casperes1996 said:
In any case For things like adding captions and resizing it really doesn’t matter all that much what format it is. Though when resizing, most quality can be preserved if you do clean doubling and divisions.
Click to expand...

Well, a JPEG is a destructive format, so that would matter.


casperes1996 said:
The significant editing like tone mapping should be done by the photographer and you should not specify a shooting format, though you can specify a delivery format.
Click to expand...

True, but I meant that hopefully he won't be shooting in JPEG...


casperes1996 said:
If you do specify a delivery format and want the total freedom for post production yourself, specify that you would prefer getting both the final deliverables as well as the digital negatives or “RAW”s. - I would not advice just asking for the RAW files. Let the professional ‘develop’ them. As for finals, anything with low compression or even better lossless compression will do.
Click to expand...

I just want to add a caption in a black box with white text, but don't plan on doing any editing of the photo itself as that should be good-to-go.

So is TIFF the format to ask for?
 
Texas_Toast said:
Maybe I should have said, "A pandemic portrait."




Well, a JPEG is a destructive format, so that would matter.




True, but I meant that hopefully he won't be shooting in JPEG...




I just want to add a caption in a black box with white text, but don't plan on doing any editing of the photo itself as that should be good-to-go.

So is TIFF the format to ask for?
Click to expand...

TIFF would work well, sure.

But in terms of your comment about JPEG - A high quality JPEG would work fine as well. Don’t overwrite the original but duplicate it when you create an edited version - But I mean yes, I would personally ask for a TIFF as well if I were specifying or asked :)
 
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A high quality (high resolution) JPEG is all you need. When you talk about destructive, that is more a benefit at time of the photographer processing it so they can benefit from the maximum flexibility to get the best image from their camera. To be honest, if the photographer is using an even modestly late model camera, arguably the JPEGs straight out of the camera are plenty good enough and you will struggle to tell the difference. I printed a JPEG file 5ft by 4ft of my friend on the evening of his wedding day with a Fuji and you cannot see any clumping of shadows or loss of detail - that was an adventure trying to get THAT in the car without bending it I tell you! :oops:

As a final output, unless you are printing it really big then you will not see the difference between a JPG and a lossless image format. You will only really need the digital negative if you plan to process the image yourself later - adding a caption is not going to affect the quality of the rest of the image. Also, you may offend the photographer by asking for the lossless format. Remember that even though you may be paying to have your picture taken, they still "own" the image and are only granting you a license to use it.
 
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It’s unlikely any photographer will give you the original raw anyway, and even if you had it you would probably not know what to do with it even if you had an app that you could open it with.

The photographer will shoot the picture in RAW, he will then edit the picture for you and deliver it in a high quality jpeg. That’s easily fine for what you want to do with it.

The lossless issue will only occur if you wish to re-edit, which you obviously won’t want to do (or else why hire someone to do it in the first place- you won’t do a better job than the photographer).

You just want to add captions other things over the top (meme style) and resize etc, then the jpeg will be as good as a tiff or anything else.

*Edit*- source: I’m a professional portrait photographer.
 
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kenoh said:
Also, you may offend the photographer by asking for the lossless format. Remember that even though you may be paying to have your picture taken, they still "own" the image and are only granting you a license to use it.
Click to expand...

I asked him up front and told him I was using it for my business and that Iw anted to add a caption on my own and he is okay with that.
 
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Texas_Toast said:
Why can't I post an image here?
Click to expand...


CASPER_-_013.jpg

Just dragging in images works for me; Or you can use the Attach File button
 
Texas_Toast said:
I asked him up front and told him I was using it for my business and that Iw anted to add a caption on my own and he is okay with that.
Click to expand...
Adding a caption is not what a photographer would call editing. Seriously, a full res jpeg will be fine for your needs. Just make sure to do a Save As and not overwrite your original jpeg and you will always have access to a clean copy of the image.
 
mollyc said:
Adding a caption is not what a photographer would call editing. Seriously, a full res jpeg will be fine for your needs. Just make sure to do a Save As and not overwrite your original jpeg and you will always have access to a clean copy of the image.
Click to expand...

Exactly; Though I would advice duplicating before editing just so no accidental overwrites happen - In Finder you can set the "Stationary Pad" checkbox in Finder - that way every time you open the file it will essentially open a duplicate
 
I keep getting this error when I try to post a sample...
Code: 
Oops! We ran into some problems.
The submitted message is too long to be processed. Please shorten it.
 
Here is a mockup of what I would like the end result to look like...
 

Attachments

  • 1602688865600.png
    1602688865600.png
    179.4 KB · Views: 113
Do you already have the appropriate software in which to design/create and include a caption? If not, why not just have the photographer add it while he is already doing the editing of the image in the first place? He could provide you with both an image sans caption and an image including the caption......
 
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Texas_Toast said:
I keep getting this error when I try to post a sample...
Code: 
Oops! We ran into some problems.
The submitted message is too long to be processed. Please shorten it.
Click to expand...


There are limits on the size of the image you want to post. Try reducing the image to 1MB or less.

That not withstanding, you have gotten exactly the same answer from everyone. I'm not sure why you keep looking for a different answer. If what you really want is the RAW or TIFF file, then ask for it. Just keep in mind that the answer will most likely be "no."
 
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I've never tried just pasting or dragging-and-dropping.....I always hit the "Attach Files" button and then select the image I want to use, located in my image files, and then I click on "Full Image" to insert the image. Easy-peasy!
 
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Clix Pix said:
I've never tried just pasting or dragging-and-dropping.....I always hit the "Attach Files" button and the select the image I want to use, located in my image files, and then I click on "Full Image" to insert the image. Easy-peasy!
Click to expand...

Method I use the most is to screenshot something with cmd+shift+4 and then hold ctrl while I mark the section or with the space bar window toggle click the window; That way it’s in the clipboard, and I just paste straight into here. Of course that’s just for screenshots but that’s the majority of what I post images of; Quick “here’s the thing” screenshots
 
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