Picasa don't like snow

SinisterDexter

I shoot Olympus RAW(orf) & Jpeg. Usually open them in Picasa, twiddle a little bit, and save - no problem.

Over the last few days I have been shooting Robins and Squirells but all my RAW files look very noisy - jpeg are a good bit better - in Picasa. The ISO is 400, and the animal/bird is in focus so I think Picasa is having issues with the snow and Raw files.

*I opened the raw files in Olympus Master with much less noise.*

Just a heads up for those of you who use Picasa primarily to view your Raw files - I only have experience of ORF's though.

duffarama

Convert your RAW in master and export to picasa to edit and you should see better results

DaireQuinlan

It could be that your pictures are underexposed by a stop or two, pictures composed almost entirely of snow have a habit of doing that, typically you'll find you have to dial in a stop of added exposure to compensate.
The discrepancy between the two methods of viewing them might be down to noise reduction. IE the olympus raw converter is doing more, thus leading to what look like less noise.

CabanSail

I was thinking that as well, but the Jpeg's seem to be exposed correctly.

DaireQuinlan

CabanSail wrote: »

I was thinking that as well, but the Jpeg's seem to be exposed correctly.

Oh right, I can't see any pictures in the OP. Regardless, doesn't a RAW conversion do an auto levels or the equivalent ? So the jpegs if they're converted from the the raw would probably look ok, albeit with a bit of smeariness from the noise reduction.

duffarama

CabanSail wrote: »

I was thinking that as well, but the Jpeg's seem to be exposed correctly.

Olympus Jpegs are fantastic

Covey

Picasa's algorithm is naturally noisy. Dufferama gave you the solution in the first post.

nilhg

Covey wrote: »

Picasa's algorithm is naturally noisy. Dufferama gave you the solution in the first post.

But he advised him to use Oly Master, an experience I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.........

OP I'd advise you to check out the free (for the time being) trial of Lightroom beta3 or have a look at RAW Therapee if you want to stick to free software.

duffarama

nilhg wrote: »

But he advised him to use Oly Master, an experience I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.........

OP I'd advise you to check out the free (for the time being) trial of Lightroom beta3 or have a look at RAW Therapee if you want to stick to free software.

I said it would give him the best results! I wouldn't recommend using master.

If he shot RAW and Large Fine Jpeg and thinks the Jpegs are good I'd just discard the RAW files and work with the Jpegs

SinisterDexter

It wasn't that I needed a solution so I could work on my Raw's.
I was just making others aware of the issue incase they only used Picasa and thought their shots were crap. I have lightroom 3 and PS CS2 - I had Raw Therapee somewhere.

Thanks for the suggestions though guys!