LR/Mogrify change format during export?

[iceman1]

I recently installed Tim's LR/Mogrify and ImageMagick for LR2 in hopes of resizing for stock use. In other words, I'm trying to find the best way to get my images exported at a consistent 48MB. Unless I am missing something, I can't figure out how to export to TIFF and then to JPEG @ 95% quality all in one export step, as suggested. I can either get a TIFF export, or guess the MPixel size in hopes of hitting around 48MB. I'm still on the trial of LR2 but I don't think that has anything to do with it.

 

[Denis Pagé]

At the moment, you can only export in one format at a time. You will have to make two export actions but they can run at the same time (click one then the other). As images do vary, JPEG file sizes do also vary. It is dependent on the content.

Oh! By the way, Welcome to the forums Iceman!

 

[Brad Snyder]

And I think there may be a bug with TIFF to JPG exports:

I've copied this from Tim's FAQ, which you can link directly here: LR2/Mogrify FAQ

Q: If I export a JPEG then doesn't that mean that LR2/Mogrify will work on the JPEG file before saving as a JPEG yet again, thereby reducing the image quality?
A: Short answer: No.

Long answer: LR2/Mogrify is designed to secretly ask Lightroom for a TIFF file to work on, and then convert to JPEG at the end. However under Lightoom 2.O there's a bug that stops me from exporting the TIFF with the user's chosen colour space, so until this is fixed by Adobe LR2/Mogrify secretly export the hightest possible quality JPEG, mogrifys that, and then creates a new JPEG with the chosen quality level.

I don't know if this problem still exists with Lr2.1.

 

[iceman1]

Thanks for the quick replies and welcome. I am still having some trouble. Here is what I am doing...

1. Export CR2 (RAW) file to TIFF @ 16.1 MPixels. This gives me a ~96MB file.
2. Export newly created TIFF photo to JPEG @ 95 quality w/ no resizing. This gives me a ~5MB file. :?

 

[Denis Pagé]

So, what is the trouble exactly? :roll:

Is that because you want 48MB TIFF files and that you get 96?

Also, there is no need to first export to TIFF and reimport those to make JPEGs. You can just export your raws to TIFF and then immediately to JPEG not having to wait for the first export to finish.

Update: What if you export 8 bits TIFFs rather than 16 bits?...

 

[Brad Snyder]

My thoughts exactly Denis, sounds like 16 bit TIFF files, instead of 8-bit.

 

[iceman1]

So, what is the trouble exactly? :roll:

Is that because you want 48MB TIFF files and that you get 96?

Also, there is no need to first export to TIFF and reimport those to make JPEGs. You can just export your raws to TIFF and then immediately to JPEG not having to wait for the first export to finish.

Update: What if you export 8 bits TIFFs rather than 16 bits?...

Indeed, I made the mistake of not changing to the 8 bit setting. I now have the proper size TIFF. You mention that "You can just export your raws to TIFF and then immediately to JPEG not having to wait for the first export to finish." but I am unsure of how to do this. It seems there was an option for this when reading a guide on how to upsize, maybe in a previous version? I have LR 2.1 and the latest version of Tim's plugin. Thanks for your help.

EDIT: I think I have solved my problem. I was expecting the exported JPEGs to be ~48MB as the TIFFs were. The JPEGs are ~5-1'MB compressed size, which apparently is what I am after.

 

[Denis Pagé]

Indeed, I made the mistake of not changing to the 8 bit setting. I now have the proper size TIFF. You mention that "You can just export your raws to TIFF and then immediately to JPEG not having to wait for the first export to finish." but I am unsure of how to do this.

I was out for the weekend...
First, make the setup to export your TIFFs and name it something like "8 Bit TIFF". Then from those same export parameters, just change the export format to JPEG, adjust quality and other parameters to you taste and name it like "JPEG something". From now on, when you want both formats exported for the same set of selected images, just click "Export", choose "8 Bit TIFF" and start the export; Without waiting for it to finish, immediately click "Export" again, choose "JPEG something and start that second export. Top left of the screen you will see that two jobs are executing.

I remember Victoria Bampton reporting here that she ran up to 26 exports at once lacking of exports to do. She was probably trying to make her Dual Quad MacPro to crawl... :roll:

 

[Mark Sirota]

I'm not understanding the point of exporting to TIFF and then JPEG.

What they're asking for is a JPEG file that looks like a 48 megabyte image when opened in Photoshop. Photoshop, in its infinite wisdom, always shows file size expressed as the size of an uncompressed TIFF. (And why the stock sites don't specify megapixels instead of megabytes, I'm sure I'll never understand.)

A 48 MB 8-bit uncompressed TIFF has exactly 16 megapixels (16 megapixels * 24 bits per pixel / 8 bits per byte = 48 megabytes). So resize your images to 16 megapixels using LR/Mogrify, and export as JPEG. (You could do this without LR/Mogrify, but you'd need to calculate the image dimensions according to your aspect ratio manually.)

It'll open up in Photoshop as a 48 megabyte image. No intermediate TIFF needed.

 

[Brad Snyder]

I'm wondering if this is a semantics issue.

IIRC, the recommended workflow for LR/Mogrify is to export from LR in a lossless TIFF format, do any 'mogrification' on the TIFF file, and and then allow Mogrify to do the TIFF/JPG conversion as the final step, thus removing any JPG artifacts and compression from the equation.

In this case the TIFF file is a discarded intermediate, I think this how Tim described the process in his very first 'Alamy users ....' thread. But since I don't see it now, perhaps I've just picked that up from general Mogrify lore.