RAW mode showing more noise than JPEG...

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Hi,

I have noticed that photographs taken with my Canon Powershot S60 in
RAW mode are actually showing MORE noise than in the default JPEG Fine
setting.

I was under the impression that RAW mode was superior quality to JPEG?

Does my Canon camera have some kind of Noise filter when used in JPEG
mode?

Also, would a RAW photograph display differently depending on which
software editor you use i.e would a RAW photograph look different in
Photoshop CS than in BreezeBrowser.

Thanks for the help...

Neil.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

On 6 Jan 2005 06:13:34 -0800, googlesher@yahoo.co.uk (GoogleSher)
wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I have noticed that photographs taken with my Canon Powershot S60 in
>RAW mode are actually showing MORE noise than in the default JPEG Fine
>setting.
>
>I was under the impression that RAW mode was superior quality to JPEG?

It is.

>Does my Canon camera have some kind of Noise filter when used in JPEG
>mode?

To see noise in all it's glory requires a very high detail
representation of the image - one way to kill it for example is
re-sample the image to 50% of the original, another way is to use some
lossy JPEG compression that softens it somewhat. RAW preserves this
data (not that you *wanted* to see it)

>Also, would a RAW photograph display differently depending on which
>software editor you use i.e would a RAW photograph look different in
>Photoshop CS than in BreezeBrowser.

I believe this is the case. My preference would be PS CS just because
it's one less piece of software needed in the workflow. RAW importers
have different features, the PS CS one is due for some improvements
and I believe there is a new version in beta right now.

--
Owamanga!

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In message <14ab36e5.0501060613.3b4293bf@posting.google.com>,
googlesher@yahoo.co.uk (GoogleSher) wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I have noticed that photographs taken with my Canon Powershot S60 in
>RAW mode are actually showing MORE noise than in the default JPEG Fine
>setting.
>
>I was under the impression that RAW mode was superior quality to JPEG?

Ultimately it is. It really all depends on what you do with the RAW
data, though. The RAW data is the source of the JPEG, so if your JPEG
has less noise, that is because the camera removed the noise. It takes
a long time for a powerful computer to remove as much noise as possible
without removing detail (something not likely to happen in-camera), so
your JPEGs are probably stripped of detail, as well as noise.

>Does my Canon camera have some kind of Noise filter when used in JPEG
>mode?

Maybe; or maybe it's the JPEG compression itself which is softening the
noise.

>Also, would a RAW photograph display differently depending on which
>software editor you use i.e would a RAW photograph look different in
>Photoshop CS than in BreezeBrowser.

Yep. There are many choices when interpretting RAW data, and each
program allows you to make some, and makes others for you.

--

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>>< ><<>
John P Sheehy <JPS@no.komm>
><<> <>>< <>>< ><<> <>>< ><<> ><<> <>><

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

JPS@no.komm wrote:
> In message <14ab36e5.0501060613.3b4293bf@posting.google.com>,
> googlesher@yahoo.co.uk (GoogleSher) wrote:
>
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I have noticed that photographs taken with my Canon Powershot S60 in
>>RAW mode are actually showing MORE noise than in the default JPEG Fine
>>setting.
>>
>>I was under the impression that RAW mode was superior quality to JPEG?
>
>
> Ultimately it is. It really all depends on what you do with the RAW
> data, though. The RAW data is the source of the JPEG, so if your JPEG
> has less noise, that is because the camera removed the noise. It takes
> a long time for a powerful computer to remove as much noise as possible
> without removing detail (something not likely to happen in-camera), so
> your JPEGs are probably stripped of detail, as well as noise.

I've seen this jpeg=less noisy effect too.

Actually, what is happening is posterization. This page:
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2
shows why. In particular, look at Figure 9(a-d) which shows raw
versus jpeg as a function of intensity. At some intensities, the
posterization will result in loss of image intensity detail
as well as noise. At low intensities, you will probably
see increases noise over the raw, but this may be different with
different raw to jpeg conversion algorithms in different cameras.
When you look at the above figures, the vertical distribution
is what you see, so when the red dots of the jpeg data fall
along a horizontal line, posterization is present.

So, while you see less noise, you will also see less intensity detail.

Roger
Photos, other digital info at: http://www.clarkvision.com

>
>>Does my Canon camera have some kind of Noise filter when used in JPEG
>>mode?
>
>
> Maybe; or maybe it's the JPEG compression itself which is softening the
> noise.
>
>
>>Also, would a RAW photograph display differently depending on which
>>software editor you use i.e would a RAW photograph look different in
>>Photoshop CS than in BreezeBrowser.
>
>
> Yep. There are many choices when interpretting RAW data, and each
> program allows you to make some, and makes others for you.
>

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

"Stacey" <fotocord@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Does my Canon camera have some kind of Noise filter when used in JPEG
> >>mode?
> >
> > Maybe; or maybe it's the JPEG compression itself which is softening the
> > noise.
>
> It probably has a default noise filtration so people don't bitch about the
> camera being noisy. Seems some people ONLY look at the noise and not the
> ability to capture details and they deisng the camera accordingly..

Reading the fine print in the reviews, the 20D only does two things
in-camera: (a) on-chip per-pixel noise reduction (analog circuit
trickery/magic) and (b) dark frame subtraction (longer exposures only).
Neither of these reduce detail the way after-the-fact noise reduction does.
The 20D also uses less aggressive sharpening at higher ISOs (apparently). My
understanding is that the 300D and 10D do none of these.

Also remember that the Canon CMOS sensors are much lower noise than the Sony
(Nikon, Epson, Pentax) and Kodak sensors (Olympus and Kodak) to start with.
Note that The E-1's noise reduction still leaves the thing nowhere close to
the 10D, and the E300 has even smaller pixels.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse1/page15.asp

The bottom line is that you are looking at the noisiest of the dSLRs, and
drawing conclusions from the efforts that Olympus goes to to make it less
objectionable do not apply to other dSLRs.

> >>Also, would a RAW photograph display differently depending on which
> >>software editor you use i.e would a RAW photograph look different in
> >>Photoshop CS than in BreezeBrowser.
>
> Yep and both of these will have more noise AND details than the original
in
> camera software will provide.

Again, only for the Olympus dSLRs: other than reduced sharpening at higher
ISOs (which doesn't reduce detail), I know of no dSLRs that do any
detail-reducing noise reduction in-camera other than Olympus.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan