Full moon photos? - Converting RAW to JPG without detail loss

[Tintype_18]

Took some photos of the full moon last night. However, to post on Share Your Photos, it said RAW photos weren't compatible. OK, went to PSE2021 to edit and save as JPG. But the RAW photo didn't show the detail that the original RAW photo showed on File Explorer. Any suggestions?

[rs-eos]

Yes, in order to share photos, you have to provide them in an appropriate format for whatever forum or other sharing service would require.  The most common being JPEG.

While I don't use Photoshop Elements, whenever I export from either Lightroom or Photoshop, I will downscale the image a bit (no need to post the original 30 MP worth of pixels).  In Lightroom, I'll specify some "Output Sharpening".   In Photoshop, after downscaling, also will often apply some final sharpening.   Thus, you can look at doing the same in PSE.  i.e. first reduce the image size in terms of pixels to be more share-friendly, then apply some sharpening.

By "share-friendly", I typically choose around 1200 x 800 pixels.   At most, around 2400 x 1600 in case I need to include extra detail.

[FloridaDrafter]

Everyone has their own method of getting the moon, but this is how I've always done it. I shoot Raw and process in DPP and export the full frame to JPeG or Tiff. I've never been able to get decent crop and export from DPP, so I use a very old program from Corel, PhotoImpact X3. It was created by a company named ULead who was bought out some years ago by Corel. I use it for cropping, framing, and reducing because it gives the best results with very little IQ loss, which is hard to do when saving to a lossy format like JPeG, so I've stuck with it over the years and prefer it to anything I've ever used.

However, whatever you use to save to JPeG, you always want to set "Quality" to its highest level. For sharing on-line I used to resize to 1280pix, but monitors are getting bigger with better resolution, so I've started sizing to 2000pix on the longest side, like top=2000 and side=1333 for landscape. To crop, I set my crop window to the same ratio as my sensor, 3:2, or sometimes 1:1. 3:2 fits a monitor better and makes for better framing with the "rule of thirds".

I took this shot of the gibbous moon last night: R5, RF 100-500 @500mm, Tv mode, 1/1600th, f/7.1, ISO 400, hand held. DPP 4: Contrast +1; Highlights +1; Unsharp mask = Strength 4, Fineness 4, Threshold 2; Clarity +1 (you won't have clarity option on T7). Everything else was set to default, easy peasy 🙂

Gibbous Waning Moon.

I took this shot a few nights ago when the moon was full, but high icy clouds made for a nice ring: R5, RF 15-35mm f/2.8L @15mm, hand held, Tv mode, 1/25th, f/2.8, ISO 10,000. This one I ran through Topaz DeNoise with a light touch. BTW, that is Jupiter near the upper right of the frame.

Full Moon With Ring.

Newton

[Waddizzle]

If you are using a Windows OS, then I suggest that you try Paint Dot Net.  It is available from a web site named Get Paint Dot Net.  I frequently use it to resize and rescale JPG files.

I am able to the DPI when it is viewed.  I can alter canvas size with or without altering DPI.  I can take a 6000 x 4000 image and resave it as 12000 x 8000 or 3000 x 2000, or almost anything I want.

I can change the bit resolution from 8 bits to 4 bits, which saves LOTS of file space.  I can post a 24 MP image to the forum if I only use 4 bits per pixel.  The human eye cannot really see a difference with the full size image.  You have to really zoom in to see a difference, 400% or more.

If you are comfortable with PSE, then you will be at ease with Paint Dot Net.  It is what MS Paint had once wanted to be.

[johnrmoyer]

Like @FloridaDrafter said, I think DPP is good for this purpose of editing the raw file. Since the moon is so bright and next to a very dark sky, it might help to increase the dynamic range. https://cam.start.canon/en/S002/manual/html/UG-04_EditImage_0040.html#EditImage_0050_11 has instructions. Drag what it calls "input white point" to the right until few of the RGB values in the brightest areas are 255 and there will be more detail in the bright areas.

When saving the JPG file from DPP, then use quality 10 if the image might be resized by other software or often quality 8 or 9 gives a smaller size file and might be good enough for uploading.