Image Quality Settings Rough Guide

I'm relatively new to the D3200 but have done a fair bit of reading and some experimentation but have been unable to get a firm grip on what image size and quality to use.

I tend to use RAW if I'm going to end up processing with Lightroom but I mostly use JPEG. I've read some articles where some people say not to waste memory card space with the Large and Fine settings but after taking a few pics of each I'm still undecided.

I generally bought the camera for taking pictures of my two kids so tend to take portrait photos in Aperture mode, when I do this sharpness isn't really an issue so should I just be using Small and Basic. I also take the odd scenery photo where I imagine I'd need to up the settings a bit.

I imagine over time and with experimentation I will get to grips with it but was wondering if anyone had any useful rules of thumb they had picked up over time for shooting in general with relation to these settings?

Unless you are really short of storage space on your pc i cant see any point in shooting less than large fine or raw,you have paid for the cameras ability you may as well use it.

The reason to shoot Raw or Raw + Fine is for that one shot, whether it is of the kids or Mount Perfectpicturemanjaro.

You can always downsize all the snapshots after the fact, even 100s of images with a few clicks. But is and always will be impossible to up-size the perfect memory or work of art you just created in post.

If in doubt go large and buy more hard drives.

Steve Hartley said:

I'm relatively new to the D3200 but have done a fair bit of reading and some experimentation but have been unable to get a firm grip on what image size and quality to use. I tend to use RAW if I'm going to end up processing with Lightroom but I mostly use JPEG. I've read some articles where some people say not to waste memory card space with the Large and Fine settings but after taking a few pics of each I'm still undecided. I generally bought the camera for taking pictures of my two kids so tend to take portrait photos in Aperture mode, when I do this sharpness isn't really an issue so should I just be using Small and Basic. I also take the odd scenery photo where I imagine I'd need to up the settings a bit. I imagine over time and with experimentation I will get to grips with it but was wondering if anyone had any useful rules of thumb they had picked up over time for shooting in general with relation to these settings?

Click to expand...

If you're going to be shooting JPG primarily I suggest you use both Large and JPG Fine settings. Reason being, a large, high resolution image file will zoom, crop and reduce down well. But once you've thrown away that resolution and image quality, there's nowhere to go but down. You might not care about the overall quality of every photo you take, but if you really nail a shot you love wouldn't you rather have the very best photo your camera is capable of taking?

Secondly, I suggest you adjust a couple settings on your D3200; if you don't like what you see it's easy to undo them, but these changes will significantly improve the overall image quality of your JPG photos.

Go into your Menus and highlight the "Shooting" menu (the camera icon)
Drop down to "Picture Controls" and click right one time.
From here, highlight "Standard" and then click right one time.
From this settings menu, increase the "Sharpness" setting to "7".
Drop down and increase the "Saturation" setting +1 notch on the slider.
Press "OK" to exit the menus and you're done.

.....

If we really don't care about quality, then it probably does not matter to anyone what crappy things we do.

If there is absolutely no way you will ever take a picture to be printed, certainly not larger than 6x4 inches, then Small possibly might be defendable. It would even print 5x7, but would not allow much extra space for cropping. The Small size would be plenty to show on a video system, TV or computer monitor, which are even smaller. But printing an 8x10, esp cropping and printing an 8x10, requires more pixels.

But do not damage your photos by choosing less than Fine JPG compression. Fine JPG is none too good. Spend a few dollars and buy a larger disk drive if necessary.

When the time comes that you take that truly amazing and remarkable picture, do you really want it to be Small Basic?

What Wayne said... additionally, as the years go by, software improves, as well as your skills... I find myself going back to RAW images that I took years ago, and between the software improvements, (lens corrections) and my skills improving, what was just an image a few years ago, can now be adjusted to something really nice...

If all I took were JPG images... some of that adjustment range and latitude would be lost forever...

FredKingston said:

What Wayne said... additionally, as the years go by, software improves, as well as your skills... I find myself going back to RAW images that I took years ago, and between the software improvements, (lens corrections) and my skills improving, what was just an image a few years ago, can now be adjusted to something really nice...

If all I took were JPG images... some of that adjustment range and latitude would be lost forever...

Click to expand...

I have some truly great photos from before when I was shooting JPG only. Wish now that I had the RAW file.

Steve Hartley said:

I've read some articles where some people say not to waste memory card space with the Large and Fine settings but after taking a few pics of each I'm still undecided.

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Sounds very much like you've been reading Kenneth Rockwells 'opinions'. If you have, please disregard all you've read. Use Raw for stuff you want to keep, use jpeg for shooting stuff for eBay, or other throw away material. Mikew makes a good point about using your cameras potential

jaydean said:

Sounds very much like you've been reading Kenneth Rockwells 'opinions'. If you have, please disregard all you've read. Use Raw for stuff you want to keep, use jpeg for shooting stuff for eBay, or other throw away material. Mikew makes a good point about using your cameras potential

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I concur with the learned opinions here and I will go Jay one step further. I have had my 3200 for almost a year now. Shoot RAW + JPEG. The reason I say that is because if you like the JPEG you can always dump the RAW. I am just starting to learn Lightroom but I can tell you when it comes to 'developing" a RAW vs JPEG image you have very few adjustment options as compared to all you can do in LR with a RAW file. If I had not shot RAW what I have learned so far about LR would be very limited and I wouldn't have some of the great mages I have now. As to space, I have a 1TB external drive I bought for around $80. Use them.

Don Kuykendall said:

I have some truly great photos from before when I was shooting JPG only. Wish now that I had the RAW file.

Click to expand...

Don, I often think this too, but it is one and I' learned my lessons. Now, I only shoot RAW and my wife learned her lesson too. *To be patient* LOL

Thanks for the comments, I'm certainly leaning towards shooting everything in RAW now (except ebay stuff etc obviously).

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All these commments have been very useful and are helping me get confident with the settings as currently I seem to spend too much time worrying about them and I don't really have that much time to do so when I'm trying to capture an impromptu moment from the kids.

*

The few times I've played about with RAW files in Lightroom and the like its been obvious just how much difference the level of control is over jpg. I've only tinkered with it on landscapes though as opposed to portraits so far.

Horoscope Fish said:

If you're going to be shooting JPG primarily I suggest you use both Large and JPG Fine settings. Reason being, a large, high resolution image file will zoom, crop and reduce down well. But once you've thrown away that resolution and image quality, there's nowhere to go but down. You might not care about the overall quality of every photo you take, but if you really nail a shot you love wouldn't you rather have the very best photo your camera is capable of taking?

Secondly, I suggest you adjust a couple settings on your D3200; if you don't like what you see it's easy to undo them, but these changes will significantly improve the overall image quality of your JPG photos.

Go into your Menus and highlight the "Shooting" menu (the camera icon)
Drop down to "Picture Controls" and click right one time.
From here, highlight "Standard" and then click right one time.
From this settings menu, increase the "Sharpness" setting to "7".
Drop down and increase the "Saturation" setting +1 notch on the slider.
Press "OK" to exit the menus and you're done.

.....

Click to expand...

I really would have liked to try these settings yesterday at my very discouraging photo outing. I thought I had read all the important stuff about the D3200 but I missed this. Never would have found those settings on my own. Am going outside right after this to try out. Are there basic "dial in" settings like this for the D40 as well? Thanks HF

adot45 said:

I really would have liked to try these settings yesterday at my very discouraging photo outing. I thought I had read all the important stuff about the D3200 but I missed this. Never would have found those settings on my own. Am going outside right after this to try out. Are there basic "dial in" settings like this for the D40 as well? Thanks HF

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear you had a disappointing session the other day... Can you be more specific about what went wrong? Maybe there's something we can do...

The settings from my previous post will work for pretty much any Nikon DSLR, including your D40, though the exact steps needed to navigate the menus might vary from camera to camera. For reasons I don't fully understand every Nikon body I've ever handled comes from the factory with the JPG "Sharpness" setting set really, really low by default. By increasing the Sharpness to roughly +7 you should see a dramatic increase in the sharpness of your photos. The +1 to Saturation setting is more of a personal taste thing (try more, try less... see what you think) but giving the "Normal" Picture Control that little extra kick in the color works for me.

I don't really suggest going higher than +7 on the Sharpness setting, but that too is a matter of personal taste when you come right down to it; in my experience +7 seems to pretty much nails the "sweet spot" but try higher, try lower and judge for yourself. Also you should know that each Picture Control (e.g. Landscape, Portrait, Normal, Vivid, etc.) has its own set of sub-menus; so if you decide you want to use the Vivid Picture Control, you'll need to go into the sub-menus and adjust the Sharpness setting there, as well. The same goes for Landscape, Portrait, etc.

And lastly, remember these settings only apply to JPG photos; if you start shooting RAW that's another matter entirely.
....

Yes indeed Paul, some of this stuff is starting to sink in.

A lot of the poor quality pix from yesterday were the result of silly blunders on my part. ie I was trying longer exposure times in A and S modes (1/4, 1/8) to try and show motion with the water and then started taking pictures of the Grandson without changing anything on the command dial. Needless to say I was sure able to show motion there! Duh...also, I somehow managed to change the exp. comp. on my D40 to -alot....those pictures look like the inside of a coal mine at midnight....about 50 of them. Most of the pix on the D3200 were over exposed, it was a real shock to see when I got home. No doubt there is help here but I will keep hammering away at it. Thanks again, I appreciate it.

If you do the +7 thing ( though I use +9 on all my cameras) set the auto iso 100-3200 min 1/30 A mode at F8 then you dont need touch anyting ever again though P mode is good for discos.