MR, I think a lot of the confusion that I see here is the conflation of digital camera stuff with printing stuff (your newsletter print shop guy and his requirements).

Terms such as a "raster graphic", RGB vs. CMYK, and even the 600dpi that you reference are way more toward the print shop side of things than the digital camera side of things. They're stuff that your printer is interested in (and, by extension, you are for your newsletter) but don't have much if anything to do with your camera - but, instead, with how you prepare your newsletter for printing...and how he deals with it after you deliver it to him.

(For the record, a raster graphic is a scalable graphic (think fonts here - it's math that renders pixels rather than a map (picture) of pixels), RGB and CMYK are ways (color models) that offset printers deal with colors (Red, Green, Blue and Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK). You've heard of "four-color offset printing"? The printer (theoretically) makes four passes (one for each color - CMYK) to produce the full-color photograph (or a photo in the newsletter). It's just a printing technique and doesn't have a thing to do with the original photo nor its format. And the 600dpi or 180dpi is the resolution at which he'll print - or wants to print.)

Also, neither of your cameras has the capacity to shoot in RAW mode. They will only create .jpgs (and there's not a thing wrong with that). I would, however, set both to take the larges pictures possible...fine is how it's described in both manuals. It's lots easier (and way more effective re quality) to decrease the size of a photo as needed than it is to increase it.

Again, I think simplify is the key here. Shoot high-resolution photos (finest of the fine on your Canons). That's all that's happening in camera land. That's the product that you produce with the camera. The rest happens elsewhere with other software/hardware. Converting the .jpgs to TIFFs (and converting from RGB to CMYK at the same time using the same program) - if that's what the printer needs - are steps into print shop land.

Asa, you are absolutely correct. The way folks were talking about .RAW it seemed as if it was the holy grail we all should seek for. Perhaps it is for some people who will buy a camera that will shoot .RAW for them, but I think even if our budget could allow that, we wouldn't do it.

I also have a small sideline of note cards that we sell to monastery guests: I use pictures I've taken of the plants and flowers as well as the animals here at the monastery with the message from Psalm 104 : "How manifold are Your works, O Lord! In wisdom have you made them all!" And for that, I want the best photos I can take and the best printing from them our printer will give (we invested in a commercial printer awhile back and it has allowed us to produce our own books, as well as giving me the inspiration for these note cards. I do have to play with the photos to get them to print out looking at all like the original, however...).

And every year we try to exhibit the best we can, including framed photography, at the local County Fair as a way of being part of the local neighborhood. Cooperstown is our county seat and with 2 colleges in nearby Oneonta there is a surprising amount of "arts and crafts" competition... I've managed to bag some ribbons without knowing a whole lot about how to use our cameras; just taking pictures of what I like...

So now I'm tempted to see if I can't do better. Since I've just joined flickr maybe I'll look into their options for printing photos.

All the best that photoshop, printers and presses can, we do still need good images to start with! So I am going to be working at both ends of this. I'm truly grateful for the feedback! MR

As a brief note in regard to seeing RAW as the "holy grail," see the new piece on close-up photography:

http://garden.org/ideas/view/e...

You have to read down quite a ways before he gives his tips on how to shoot once you have your lenses in place. MR

Hey! Asa -- it's your own piece! Maybe I'll write an article about how unnecessary it is to shoot in RAW... MR

MotherRaphaela said:Hey! Asa -- it's your own piece! Maybe I'll write an article about how unnecessary it is to shoot in RAW... MR

Haha...MR, I started this thread about shooting RAW. And it's a good idea all things equal. But it's not the holy grail, to be sure. I should shoot more RAW (or at least RAW +JPG) than I do, but the slower write times (RAW files are so much larger) really annoy me when I'm click-click-clicking.

Cameraland can get so technical (and pedantic) and most of the sites dedicated to pure photography are filled with so much technical information...that last .01pct of perfection. And I think that people focus so much on that aspect...the finest honing...and often ignore the 99.99 pct of what makes a good experience with your camera. And I'd assert that at least 90pct of that is having fun and enjoying it. If you're not having fun, you're not clicking. And that kind of defeats the purpose of it all.

I'm obviously missing something -- what is RAW +JPG?

MotherRaphaela said:I'm obviously missing something -- what is RAW +JPG?

Some cameras will write both formats to the card at the same time.

OK, I'm out of this RAW thread. Learned what I needed to learn and now all of you who will be learning to use RAW can get on with it! MR

not so fast @MotherRaphaela!
according to the link that i posted in the macro thread both of your cameras should be capable to shoot RAW with addition of CHDK firmware..
and the link leads here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D....
that's prolly too much to contemplate at this point though
i found how to set mine to RAW+jpeg and took some sample shots, but haven't tried to process them yet...

Hmmm. Later. It's warm enough to get outside today so that's where I'm going!

Took a few pictures: if the weather holds I'll experiment with the larger Canon, but first I wanted to be sure I documented some of the more spectacular (for me) semp color changes. Here's a 2014 seedling that I think is an absolute beauty!

Not bad for a closeup... I'm learning! Now if I can truly learn to shoot .RAW that will be, as the kids say, "Awesome!" MR

MR, that's a nice macro! One of the things I like best about my Canon S5 IS is the super macro. Not sure if your picture was taken as a super macro or not, but I used mine a lot. Just have to be careful not to get pollen on the lens, that's how close one can get !

I need time to experiment with that. I cheated and used the smaller camera, putting it on portrait, then hitting the flower icon and zooming in. Since I learned that both of our cameras zoom in without losing pixels, I'm using that more.

I'm still nervous about making the shift to manual and also to using the lenses we got. Of course that also means using the larger Canon S5 IS like yours. This is purely and simply an emotional block and I will get past it. Right now I'm still in bear mode, as one of my fellow North-Easterners put it, getting ready for hibernating in the cold weather and thankful we've got a 2-day breather here. (Here's our weather forecast, so you west-coast people can gloat: http://forecast.weather.gov/Ma...) With my allergy to cold I need to do everything I can to get my plants winterized before this next cold front settles in.

I wanted to document some of my plants today without taking too much time and did some of this uploading when I needed to sit and recuperate!

I'll experiment with the cameras -- including this famous .RAW -- when I'm stuck indoors again...

By the way, Asa, congratulations on winning in the raffle! MR

Been playing with rawtherapee.
Thanks for the link!
Regards.
Neil.

That is an awesome picture!

A soft Australian tree fern, bringing new life in my garden!
Regards.
Neil.

Just so you know, Neil, this forum isn't really a showcase of photos but rather intended to be for the indepth discussion of photographic techniques. Please keep the posts in this forum on topic.

I simply was showing what rawtherapee can do, even if the phonographs are not raw! Although these were once! It is amazing what it can do against some other programs I have used!
Even converting stuff from a Canon 450D which is now out of date to the amazing stuff it can do with my Rebel t2i.
Especially as this program is free.
I will of course keep off this forum!
Sorry for any inconvinence.
Neil.