DeepDesertPhoto

I don't know if this has been covered before here but I have a question about image resolution when creating panoramas, stacks, HDR merging, and Focus merging. Whenever I create a panorama, stack, HDR merge, or do a focus merge, the image resolution of the final image is always 96 PPI. Why does it always produce an image with such low PPI when the original images used were 300 PPI? I have gone through the preferences and cannot find a setting for the resolution when it comes to panorama, stack, HDR merge, and focus merge. Is there a way to make the final image from these tasks come out with the same resolution as the original images that were used for the tasks? Right now I have to manually change the resolution after the task is completed, which is annoying because sometimes I forget to do it and only remember after I try to upload the image to an art site and it gets rejected for low resolution.

If you're converting from 32 bit RGB to 8 bit RGB JPG, like the way I was, it is a limitation of the file format you're converting to, especially if it looks normal in 32 bit color. Like I mentioned in my posting I only encounter this problem when photographing cloudy sky with a lot of bluish grays, and I have also encountered this problem with blue skies that have gradually changing shades from light to dark. I was only able to solve the problem by lightening up the darker areas before converting it to a JPG. However, I always save a master copy in 32 bit color just in case AP releases a newer version in the future that might have better compression when converting.

I decided to rework the image. Since the banding was in areas that were darker with many shades of gray I simply reworked the image with a lighter sky with less gray. It does not have the high contrasts of an HDR image but at least it no longer has the banding issue.

When I work on these type of images I first shoot the scene in Camera RAW, in my case it is a Nikon D810 set to NEF raw. I then open the NEFs with AP and do the development. I have AP set to open the NEFs in 32 bit RGB HDR, which preserves 100% of the original NEF quality while I do the development. When all the development is done I then save the file as an AP document preserving the 32 bit RGB quality. I then use that as the master copy which I use to produce a 16 bit LAB TIF file for printing and an 8 bit RGB JPEG which is for uploading to the stock agencies I sell my work through. I forgot about the 256 shades of gray limitation for JPG images. But I can see the banding to a smaller extent in the 16 bit LAB TIF file, which has not occurred before.

I was working an HDR image that looks perfectly fine in 32 bit HDR but when I convert it to 16 bit LAB or 8 bit RGB I am getting a banding problem. My banding problem is occurring in a storm photo I took in which I combined 3 exposures in 32 bit HDR. The banding appears in the smoother areas of the dark clouds in the photo. Like I said this banding is not visible with the original AP document that is in 32 bit HDR. The banding is only noticeable when converted to a 16 bit LAB color TIF file or an 8 bit RGB JPEG. I did not have this problem with the last version of AP so I am wondering if it is a problem with the way the newer version of AP is converting the image to the other formats I use. I am including the JPG version that has the banding. The only way I have been able to fix this is by lightening the tones of the clouds where the banding occurs, but that ruins the HDR toning, so I hope there is a fix because I do a lot of HDR photography. I am using the latest version of AP (1.8.4)

That is probably more plausible since I have not used Windows since 1995. Patrick Conner told me to post about this because he said that AP may need some tweaking since the JPF support is a recent update for the program. Until Serif fixes the color shifting and scrambled LAB color I will still have to use GIMP and Apple Preview App to convert my JPFs to TIF before using AP to edit them.

As I mentioned in reply to another commenter I am able to open JPF with AP by right clicking on the JPF file directly and in the Mac Finder dropdown menu it does give AP as a program capable of opening it. But AP does not show JPF in its own "Open" dropdown menu. Since JPF support was just added for this version of AP maybe that is why Patrick Conner told me the software does need some tweaking.

JPF does not show up on my AP "Open" dialog either. But I am using a Mac. I am able to open JPF with AP by right clicking on the JPF file directly and in the Mac Finder dropdown menu it does give AP as a program capable of opening it. If your Windows does not have that right click on the file option then that is a Windows issue.

To my knowledge no still camera uses the JPF format. My Nikon only produces NEF files at full resolution. These files are very old, with some in my collection dating back to about 2007. Back then I had very limited hard drive space on my computer and external HDs were very expensive at the time, so I was using the JPF format to save space since JPF supported the same color modes and bit depth as TIF yet was about half the size of a TIF because the compression algorithm was similar to a PNG. The reason I did not use PNG was because PNG only supported RGB 16 bit and I used LAB color. Only TIF and JPF supported LAB color so I chose JPF to save HD space. But now that HD space is larger and external HDs are cheaper than they were back in 2007 I wanted to convert my old JPFs to TIF for easier editing.

XnViewMP probably has trouble handling the LAB color mode for this image. GIMP also cannot open a JPF in LAB color. That is why I had to use Mac Preview to open it and then convert it to an RGB JPF. I then use GIMP to open it and save it as a TIF for editing in AP.

I can see that PhotoLine opened it as 16 bit LAB, which was the way it was originally encoded by Photoshop CS5. Affinity Photo can't do that yet. Hopefully AP will be adjusted so that I don't have to use other programs to open these older files.

I do get that sometimes, but just manually select sRGB and then it opens.

I'm not sure I am posting this in the proper forum but Patrick Conner asked me to post samples of JPF files that were not opening properly in the "Questions" section of the forum. He mentioned that JPF support was just added and might need tweaking. To give some history of the issues I had before JPF was added in the past when I tried to open a JPF file using AP I would get an error that it was an unsupported file. To get around this problem I used another program called GIMP to open the RGB JPF files and converted them to TIF. I would then use AP to reopen and edit. GIMP does not support LAB color so I had to use the MAC Preview App to open those particular JPFs and convert them to RGB. Then I would open those with GIMP to convert to TIF for editing with AP. Now AP can open the files but they are not displaying correctly. If the JPF file is in RGB mode it will open with AP but the colors are shifted to the red and are over saturated. If I try to open a JPF that is in the LAB color mode the image is completely scrambled. As per Patrick's request here are 2 screenshots to illustrate the problem. I will also include the original JPF files so that you can use them to tweak the software. GhostOfStanwix.jpf Gilded_Flicker_Morning_Call.jpf

Sorry for the late reply, the notification I got ended up in my spam box for some reason. I will get to this shortly and post some screenshots showing the differences.

I only updated my version of AP a few days ago, but I wanted to say thank you for addressing something that had been on my wish list since I first got the program over 2 years ago: full metadata control. In the older version I had I could only write descriptions into the metadata. Now I can also write a title, put in my author name, and most importantly for me, add keywords. I sell my photos through stock agencies and it was always a pain to manually type them in through the agency's website upload window because I had to do it with each website I uploaded to. Now I only need to add the keywords once using AP in the original file and those keywords will now be recognized at each site I upload to. This will save me a lot of time when uploading to multiple sites. Another improvement I noticed is defringing. When I was editing my Nikon raws I always had a problem with high contrast images fringing heavily toward the edges. In the older version of AP I could never get that fringing completely removed without created weird color distortions elsewhere in the image. In the latest update that problem has been eliminated and the images come out near perfect with I apply the defringing preset I created. Also, I had been inquiring in other threads about JPF support since had several hundred older JPF files. The older version of AP could not open those. The new update does seem to have the ability to open JPFs if they are in the RGB color mode, although the colors are little more saturated than I would like. However, color saturation is correctable. However, when I open JPFs in the LAB color mode the image opens with the colors all scrambled, but I have found a work around for that by using the Preview App in my Mac to convert those JPFs to RGB and then reopen them with AP for editing. Perhaps the next version of AP will have full JPF support, at least for opening JPFs so that can be edited and saved in a more conventional format like TIF of PNG.

About a month or so ago I posted a topic asking when APh was going to add JPF (JPEG2000) support. During the discussion I was told by several forum members that they were able to open files with extensions of JP2. However, all of my old JPEG2000 files had the extension of .JPF and I kept getting an error that this file type was not supported. This was most likely due to the JPF extension being only used by Photoshop. A couple of members pointed me in the direction of other programs and online services that would do the job but I found those programs cumbersome to use and I did not like doing online conversions since image theft is rampant on the internet. After much searching I finally found one program that is free and will open older Photoshop JPF files. It is called GIMP. Many of you probably know about it. In the past GIMP only supported 8 bit color depth, but in their newest release, version 2.10.14, they have now added 16 and 32 bit color depth support. They also added support for what they referred to as "Rare Formats". They did not state JPF specifically but I decided to take a chance and download the program. To my relief GIMP was able to open my older JPF files if they were already in RGB mode. Because GIMP does not support LAB color I had to use my Mac's Preview App to convert the JPFs that were in LAB to JP2 RGB. I then opened the JP2s produced by Preview App with GIMP and exported them to 16 bit RGB TIFF. The only thing I had to do before converting the JPF to TIFF was change the display resolution from the GIMP default of 72PPI to 300PPI so that the resulting TIFF would be at 300PPI. After the conversion using GIMP I was then able to open the new TIFF file with Affinity Photo and simply convert it back to LAB color before saving it to replace the original JPF version. Just thought I would alert all of you that there is now a free solution to the conversion of older JPFs in case any of you still have files in that older format. On an additional note about the conversion, if you have to use the Preview App to convert a JPF to JP2 set it for lossless to preserve all the original quality. I know that Affinity Photo can open JP2, but when I tried that the colors displayed were over saturated. I also tried using the Preview App to convert the JPFs that were in LAB color directly to TIFF but the Preview App would not give me a 16 bit option and the result was duller colors. By using GIMP to convert the JP2 to 16 bit TIFF the color saturation stayed original.

Apparently this is an issue that the techs for Affinity Photo will have to answer. It is not causing a problem with processing the photos, it is just an inconvenience when I have to drag the file tabs into their proper order before I begin processing the photos. Maybe someone from Affinity Photo will address this later or perhaps it will be fixed in a later update.

Like I mentioned, if I open the files one at a time they do line up in the tabs in their original order. I can also drag the tabs into their original order, but that takes a little time if I have 8 or 10 files open at the same time. I also mentioned that when opening RAW files in which the file sizes are almost identical the opening order is completely random. I am wondering if this has something to do with the camera metadata because the only thing that varies a lot from image to image is the camera settings for each shot.

I read through that thread and it seems the problem has not been addressed yet by those that write the code for APh, especially since I have the current version 1.7.3 I know it is not a problem with my Mac's Finder App because when I use the finder to select a group and open them with the Preview App they all open in their assigned alphanumeric name order. This random opening of the files seems to be only when I use APh to open them.

If I open the files one at a time they will line up in order in the tabs. The problem starts when I select a group of images to open together. When I am opening RAW files as a group and they are close to the same size or have identical file sizes APh opens them in a totally random order. It seems the date does not matter because when I select a group of RAWs they all have the same date with only the hours and minutes varying. But even then when I select them they are in an order and yet APh opens them randomly. Does anyone have a technical reason APh might be doing this? Could it have something to do with the camera metadata for each file?

I am not sure if this topic has been covered before. I really love Affinity Photo. In my opinion it is superior to photoshop in many aspects, at least when compared to CS5 since that was the last photoshop I used to use before switching to APh. But there is one thing about APh that is kind of annoying. When I highlight a group of images I want to open at the same time APh always opens and orders them in the tabs according to their files sizes and not the order they are arranged in according to their alphanumeric names. This is particularly annoying when it is a group of photos I am processing to be made into a panorama. I went into the preferences and cannot find anything listed for how the files are opened or ordered in the tabs. Is there a way to make a group of files open in their alphanumeric order and not their sizes?

I'm using a MacBook Pro Retina Laptop. I went to a website for testing the accuracy of my LCD screen and even though it is not 100% accurate it is in the "good" range. The only thing that is visibly out of adjustment is the gamma. The site also said that all monitors should be calibrated once every month or two depending upon usage. I checked the date of my last calibration and it is dated January of 2019. So it is overdue for a calibration. I ran a builtin utility for the color profiles in my Mac and out of 65 profiles it only found 3 errors. Since it takes a significant amount of time to do this calibration I will have to get to it another time. But another way I know that my photo colors are accurate, or at least good enough for commercial use, is through the agencies I sell my photography through. They are very harsh critics and if something is visibly wrong with the photos I submit they will reject them and tell me what is wrong with them. I have never gotten any rejects for color problems.

If left on factory default you would be correct. The LCD screen of my Mac would not give me color accuracy straight out of the box because the default setting tends to have a bluer tint. I carefully calibrated my LCD display by running the calibration program built into the Mac. It actually took 15 minutes to properly calibrate because I had to manually select some of the test patterns according to how I perceived the blacks and grays. If white objects looked white on the screen after calibration that is how you know if the colors are correct. If any white objects or white patterns on the screen have any kind of tint then the calibration needs to be redone.

This is the reason I use LAB. Color accuracy. When I print my LAB color images they do come out very close to what I see on the computer screen. RGB and straight CMYK color modes don't always look right when compared to what I see on the screen.

Like I said, I came to my conclusions through experimentation. When I found a setting in my printer that produced the most accurate colors I saved that setting as a separate preset so that I did not have to adjust it every time I tried to print an image. Notice in the screenshots of my prior comment that I have a preset called "Photo-Gloss-13x19". That setting is a preset I created specifically for LAB color mode images being printed on 13x19 inch photo paper. I have similar presets for different sizes and types of images.