editing jpegs in LR and export settings

[superpanda]

Hi Guys,

 

I understand most of the discussions here are on RAW post processing.

How about the Jpegs?  I really love the colors I am getting from the jpegs and with the highlight tone ,shadow and DR settings of the X-pro2,  I really don't need to use RAW. Except for when I am in a rush, the scene is challenging and I don't have time to meddle with the settings.

 

Anyways,  my question is, when you edit your jpegs in Lightroom /photoshop- more like retouching, cropping , minor contrast/exposure adjustments, what settings do you export your jpeg as?  quality at 100% ? I'm thinking jpeg's already had compression, exporting at lower than 100% will lead to even further reduction of quality?

 

How about sharpening? JPEG files starigh out of camera should have had decent amount of sharpening so I figured it should be zero (unless you want that really sharp look)

 

 

With RAW source files i usually export to JPEG at 76% with DPI of 300 and Standard Sharpening.

 

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited March 17, 2016 by superpanda

[darknj]

Yes, if you lower the quality of a Jpeg file and export it again with a lower quality level it is going be degraded and the more you do it, the worst it will become.

 

As for the sharpening in Lightroom, it works somewhat on a Jpeg file, but since you don't have access to all the pixels data, the software is going to guess its course of action, which can be detrimental at tomes.

Straight out of camera, you can adjust it directly from the menu to your flavor, I usually tone it down as I don't like the camera's engine over sharpening the output, I would rather have a softer look than the contrary.

Then again, your personal taste might/will disagree with me.

 

In an ideal world, those settings shouldn't stay fixed, you are to move them around depending on your need, subject, taste, ambiance,... It took me several weeks before I got a balance in the Jpeg output for noise, sharpness,... settings to suit my taste. And even then, I make changes to them on the spot from the Q menu if I need to do so.

 

Then again, I shoot raw, so a lot of these considerations are overshadowed as I can change them whenever I want. I keep the Jpeg files just in case I need to quickly share them or print them out on the Instax SP1 printer.

[icarm]

I just started using Jpegmini Pro and have seen much smaller files (2-4x typically) with no image loss. They explain their methods on their site. They have a LR plugin so it's one easy step just like exporting naturally. I found these suggestions from Peter Bridgwood's website helpful for sharpening tips:

LIGHTROOM 6.1 & FUJI X-TRANS - YouTube

Cheers