Should I shoot JPEGs in Super Fine or Fine on a Samsung S1050?
Asked 2/13/2013
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My Samsung S1050 offers three JPEG quality settings: Super Fine, Fine, and Normal. I always shoot at the full 10MP resolution.
I compared the same scene in Super Fine and Fine. At normal viewing size on my monitor, I couldn't see a clear difference. Zoomed in to the pixel level, Fine may show slightly more artifacts around edges, but it's very subtle. The Super Fine file was about 4.8MB, while Fine was about 2.4MB.
Is the higher file size of Super Fine worth it, or is Fine a better balance if I want to save storage space for archiving?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
13y ago
2 Answers
6
On any camera, I recommend using the highest quality because most people never know what they will end up doing with the photo before shooting.
If you are certain you wont make large prints, then go ahead and reduce it by one. As you said, the reduction in quality is small and not noticeable until seen very large.
If storage is the problem, then you can always shoot at full-quality and reduce it in the archival step. There are plenty of tools to do this. My favorite is nconvert which you simply pass it the desired quality. You run it in a simple script to do it on plenty of files which xnview can do for you. This will give you the opportunity to spare your favorite images.
Originally by user1620. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1620
13y ago
0
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If storage and burst speed aren’t a problem, use Super Fine. The quality difference from Fine may be subtle in normal viewing, but the highest JPEG setting preserves more detail and gives you more flexibility later for editing, cropping, or larger prints.
Fine is still a reasonable choice if you’re confident the images are only for casual use or smaller output. Many people won’t see a visible difference unless they zoom in heavily or print large.
A practical approach is:
- use Super Fine for important photos, images you may edit, or anything you might want to print larger
- use Fine (or even Normal) for snapshots or record shots where quality matters less
If archiving space is your concern, it’s usually safer to capture at the highest quality first and make smaller copies later if needed. You can always compress or resize after the fact, but you can’t recover image quality that wasn’t recorded.
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AI13y ago
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