SHQ vs HQ on Olympus Digital - largely inconsequential?

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dlwalke

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Well, I finally got my printer up and running and I am quite excited. I'm currently doing some experiments with resolution and ppi and dpi, etc. etc. Just took a couple of shots at the same resolution (2560 X 1920) but using the SHQ (low compression) versus HQ (higher compression) mode, and then printed them. I can't tell the difference. Given the much higher memory demands of saving SHQ shots, it hardly seems worth it. Is this anyone elses experience, or does anyone disagree with me on this?

And also, anyone have any thoughts about the "enlarge size" (3200 X 2400). Its a 5 MP camera, so I don't understand whats going on with the phony pixels when you shoot in this mode. If it were really taking 7.7 MP, I'm sure Olympus would advertise the C5050 as a 7 or 8 MP camera.

Thanks for any info,
Dave
 
It would entirely depend on the type of pictures you're taking as to wether the differences would appear. The differences for jpg compressions would be in details and artifacts. The more compression thats used the less high-frequency data there is (high frequency data in images is basically the small details and edges). So, if you compress lots you'll lose the small stuff. Also, if you look around the edges, jpg has a nasty habit of leaving artifacts. These are hard to describe but once you see them you cant seem to stop seeing and looking for them. These are more prevalent in images with higher compression. Best thing to do would be to take one of your best images and then compress it a whole bunch in photoshop and see what you're missing between the two. Then realize as you compress less and less that what you saw exagerated in the highly compressed image seems to be minimized. Then, its just a matter of how much you're willing to tolerate and how much your printer might show it up. Then thats your happy medium and if you can take the HQ mode over SHQ at that point, you win the game.

steve
 
I remember reading somwhere that 3.3MP is just enogh for printing to the max size of A4. If you will print a photo from a 3.3MP to a paper larger then A4 then you will really see lot's of artifacts.
And of cource, the bigger you prunt, the more details you need in order NOT to have artifacts. therfor you will like to use less compression.

I have the Oly 3030. On one 64MB chip I can put over 80 photo's at HQ. The battary doesnt hold that long so I don't really care about the photo size.
After each dive I move the pictures to a portable 10GB HD, clear the flash chip and I'm ready to go back to the water.
 
I know nothing about underwater photography:) but i got here while looking for someone who has tried printing/developping simillar picture taken on SHQ and HQ mode.
I have the camera (Olympus c-750UZ) for a couple of days now, and i really can't see any difference between SHQ and HQ.
I'm affraid it wan't be the case when i develop the pictures in a lab... I know quite a lot about JPEG, i have taken some pictures that i think should be dificult for JPEG to handle - and nothing - pictures looked just perfect - except for the blue artifacts on the edge of dark/light objects - but thats independent fron the compressison ratio.

You have asked about something that is called Enlarged Size - as far as I know this is process called interpolation - the picture is taken with the same number of pixels (e.g 4MP) but then, using software, mapped to e.g. 7MP - the value for the pixels that are missing is simply an average value of surrounding pixels.
Thats why this mode is only recommended if you know that you will make a large printout of the picture - the quality of the picture is lower, but it provides more information for the printer and the overall quality of the printout is higher.
Well... at least thats how I think it works :)
 
What size print are you printing? I think you see the biggest differences in prints 8x10 and above. If you're satidfied with your results at HQ, go with it!
 
Above 8x10 I haven't been satisfied with HQ pictures.

Not that I normally print above 8x10, but you never know. Someday I may wish I had those pixels. That's why I never use less than SHQ mode.
 
Remember that cropping will cut down on the number of pixels available to print as well. The more you have to start with, the more options you have in post processing.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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