Pic quality for Canon T3i recommendation.

[KAYLI'S DAD]

Anybody have a recommendation on what quality to set my T3i on for taking pictures. I just got it and have it on the highest setting which I know is overkill if Im not going blow it up to posters. Im thinking just for vacation and family pictures.

Right now every pictures is about 6mb and at this rate Im gonna have to buy some terabyte hard drives to store and back these pictures up.

 

[boBQuincy]

RAW. That's what I use for all photos (except maybe eBay photos, and even then I usually don't bother to change the settings).

 

[ukcatfan]

I always suggest to always use the very best setting. You can always take information away after the fact, but you can never add it back if it was not there to begin with. I also suggest RAW for this reason.

 

[photo_chick]

Use the highest setting. It's better to have too many pixels than not enough. And hard drives are cheap.

 

[Frantasmic]

at this rate Im gonna have to buy some terabyte hard drives to store and back these pictures up.

Nothing wrong with that. it is something you should be doing anyway. My wife was looking at our backup hard drives last night (4 of them) and just shook her head.

Of course, my wife isn't as understanding as Mark B's with his triple RAID Fort Knox like backup with DNA and retinal scan.

 

[GrumpyGoat]

RAW. That's what I use for all photos (except maybe eBay photos, and even then I usually don't bother to change the settings).

Suggesting the use of RAW without knowing the OP's post processing skills is really kind of counter-productive. Shooting in RAW is not for the DSLR beginner. RAW requires many more steps after the picture is taken that it's not recommended for beginners. It requires additional software although a basic package is included with the camera and an understanding of exposure and composition.

I suggest he shoot in large fine JPEG until such time he feels he has a handle on how the camera operates. Then, and only then, should he consider shooting in RAW and post processing the images.

 

[bob100]

Suggesting the use of RAW without knowing the OP's post processing skills is really kind of counter-productive. Shooting in RAW is not for the DSLR beginner. RAW requires many more steps after the picture is taken that it's not recommended for beginners. It requires additional software although a basic package is included with the camera and an understanding of exposure and composition.

I suggest he shoot in large fine JPEG until such time he feels he has a handle on how the camera operates. Then, and only then, should he consider shooting in RAW and post processing the images.

Actually shooting in RAW requires only one more step!
You can shoot in RAW using the supplied Canon software and but do no adjustments or do as many as you want.
To the OP - memory is cheap - shoot in RAW and then you have the most latitude in adjustments and resizing

 

[mrodgers]

Right now every pictures is about 6mb and at this rate Im gonna have to buy some terabyte hard drives to store and back these pictures up.

A $60 external 500GB hard drive would hold 83,000 pictures at 6mb each. That's a lot of pictures.

 

[photo_chick]

Actually shooting in RAW requires only one more step!
You can shoot in RAW using the supplied Canon software and but do no adjustments or do as many as you want.
To the OP - memory is cheap - shoot in RAW and then you have the most latitude in adjustments and resizing

What he said.

While you can get to the same editing result in the end with a jpeg or RAW, it takes a whole lot more work with the jpeg. Shoot RAW. Even if you have to process with the default settings right now, you can always come back later when you learn more and improve older images.

 

[KAYLI'S DAD]

So, you guys are saying that if I shoot with RAW that there is a way to reduce the file size in the EOS software? I installed the software but I have never looked at it yet.

 

[bob100]

So, you guys are saying that if I shoot with RAW that there is a way to reduce the file size in the EOS software? I installed the software but I have never looked at it yet.

sure, I haven't used Canon's DPP software in a while but most image editing programs have an option for resizing and saving in different quality settings

 

[Frantasmic]

A good program to have is a free one called irfanview.

It will allow you to view your raw files and converted jpegs together in series, whereas the windows applications that come with the computer don't always. It can also resize your converted jpegs. The canon utility might do all these things, but I tend to convert with the canon utility and then other manipulation with the irfanview program.