saving pictures

[stardis]

I thought that I would save my pictures in the original jpeg and then work on copies if I wanted to adjust levels, etc., but a friend said to download the jpegs and convert to tif and then save and work with tif files. I don't know the best way to save and archive. So far I have saved the original jpegs and then burned them to cd. When I want to work with the picture I then get it off the cd. I have some pictures that I want to rotate and some that I want to adjust levels in Elements2 and then burn them to a cd to send to a friend. Should I convert to tif before adjusting and then save as jpeg or just open them, adjust and not worry about losing resolution when I resave? I have an S30 and S820 and like both very much. Thanks.

[PacAce]

stardis wrote:
I thought that I would save my pictures in the original jpeg and then work on copies if I wanted to adjust levels, etc., but a friend said to download the jpegs and convert to tif and then save and work with tif files. I don't know the best way to save and archive. So far I have saved the original jpegs and then burned them to cd. When I want to work with the picture I then get it off the cd. I have some pictures that I want to rotate and some that I want to adjust levels in Elements2 and then burn them to a cd to send to a friend. Should I convert to tif before adjusting and then save as jpeg or just open them, adjust and not worry about losing resolution when I resave? I have an S30 and S820 and like both very much. Thanks.

If your original images are shot in JPG, I'm not sure what converting to TIFF is going to do for you since you've already lost image data in your "original". Converting JPG to TIFF just so you can edit the image and then save the final image as a JPG file just adds a useless step to the overall process. All you really need to do is load the JPG file, edit it to your heart's content and then save the final image as a JPG file. This, of course, is assuming that the editing will be done in one session without any intervening saving and reloading of the file.

(When you say you convert from JPG to TIFF, do you mean that you load the JPG file, then "Save As" a TIFF file and then load the TIFF file into your editor for editing? Can't think of any reason why you would "convert" a file like that!)

Now, if you want to partially edit the JPG file and then save it for more editing at a later time, then, by all means save it as a TIFF file or better yet, as a PSD file, especially if you have multiple layers. You can then go back to editing this file again and when you're all done, you can save the final image as a JPG file to email to friends. NOTE, however, that there are no extra steps taken to convert the JPG file to TIFF or PSD before the image is edited. The JPG file is edited as a JPG file and it automatically gets converted to a TIFF or PSD file when it is saved as a TIFF or PSD file for later editing.

[stardis]

Thanks, that makes sense to me. I have tried saving the pictures as raw and I wonder if that might be something I should be doing. In the end, I want to archive the best resolution photo that I can. Your emphasis on "original" makes me wonder about that. I have had good luck using the Zoombrowser. If I save in raw format, I will probably need to convert to something in order to open it in Elements. Is that right? I will try that.

[PacAce]

stardis wrote:
Thanks, that makes sense to me. I have tried saving the pictures as raw and I wonder if that might be something I should be doing. In the end, I want to archive the best resolution photo that I can. Your emphasis on "original" makes me wonder about that. I have had good luck using the Zoombrowser. If I save in raw format, I will probably need to convert to something in order to open it in Elements. Is that right? I will try that.

When you say you're going to save a picture as raw, I hope you mean that you are going to set the camera to shoot RAW instead of JPG. The RAW file can then be archived as-is, without any conversion.

When you're ready to edit the picture, you need to convert the raw file to either TIFF or JPG using the Canon File View Utility or some other 3rd party software that does raw file conversions. If you want to retain as much of the image detail as possible, your best bet is to convert to TIFF. You can then edit the tiff file and save the final output as either a TIFF file or a JPG file, depending on what your needs are.

[stardis]

I set the camera to shoot Raw and then took a bunch of pictures after I read your post. After I downoaded them I used the Canon Raw Converter to convert to tiff. The converter has an option use use 8 bits/channel or 16 bits /channel. I used 8 because it was preselected. That must be for editing in Photoshop for some reason? I don't think the converter had an option to convert to JPEG. I wish it did have that option because it would make printing with Canon's Easy Photo Print simple--it won't print anything but JPEG apparently.

I will have to get something to convert to JPEG and/or learn how to print without Easy Photo Print. I tried printing from Elements 2 but that didn't work out well at all. I need to experiment with those print setting dialogs quite a lot before I understand what the heck I am doing. Thanks for the advice .

[rdenney]

PacAce wrote:
If your original images are shot in JPG, I'm not sure what converting to TIFF is going to do for you since you've already lost image data in your "original".



I would never edit a JPEG file directly. Every time you hit the save button, the compression algorithm will start all over again, and you'll get generational losses.

When I shoot in JPEG, I save them upon first editing as a PSD file (though TIFF would work, too, if you aren't using Photoshop). That way, repeated editing sessions don't create new JPEG artifacts on top of the old ones. If I need a JPEG in the future, I save it that way as a final step before publishing it.

And there is a good reason to convert it from the original 8-bit JPEG to 16-bit PSD or TIFF for editing: When you apply strong curves adjustments, the greater bit depth will allow the curve algorithm to choose many more intermediate color steps, which has the effect of interpolating the original 8 bits into 16 bits during editing. It's much easier to avoid posterization, especially if you make several big tonal moves. The histogram is only 8-bits, so you don't see the effect of it on the data displays, but it's there.

Rick "who thinks a file should never be saved twice in JPEG" Denney

[PacAce]

rdenney wrote:
I would never edit a JPEG file directly. Every time you hit the save button, the compression algorithm will start all over again, and you'll get generational losses.


This is not an accurate statement. You can save a JPEG file you are editing as many times as you want without getting cumulative generation losses so long as you are doing it all in one session without any intervening closing of the file and reloading of it. I thought I had made that clear in my original thread.

I do agree with your other points, though, re editing in 16 bit TIFF, at least in theory. In practice, my personal opinion is that converting a JPG to 16-bit TIFF for that extra "latitute" in color just won't be perceptible in the final JPG image.

However, if you're going to be picky about color latitude and editing in 16-bit TIFF, then why not shoot RAW in the first place where ALL the image data is retain. Shooting in JPG where some of this data is lost and the trying to regain it by editing in 16-bit TIFF just doesn't make sense to me. Just my 2 cents.

[PacAce]

stardis wrote:
I set the camera to shoot Raw and then took a bunch of pictures after I read your post. After I downoaded them I used the Canon Raw Converter to convert to tiff. The converter has an option use use 8 bits/channel or 16 bits /channel. I used 8 because it was preselected. That must be for editing in Photoshop for some reason? I don't think the converter had an option to convert to JPEG. I wish it did have that option because it would make printing with Canon's Easy Photo Print simple--it won't print anything but JPEG apparently.

I will have to get something to convert to JPEG and/or learn how to print without Easy Photo Print. I tried printing from Elements 2 but that didn't work out well at all. I need to experiment with those print setting dialogs quite a lot before I understand what the heck I am doing. Thanks for the advice .

stardis,

You should be able to select EXIF-JPG if you want to convert RAW to JPG. You can also select the level of compression you want. Select 4 to give you the least amount of compression and hence retain the most amount of original picture info.

[msvirick]

Since most of us do the processing in Photoshop or Elements, why not save the manipulated file in photoshop format, this will save the image of excessive jpeg clipping.
Is this a good idea, or tiff conversion to save this, is still necessary?

[ryuwulf]

Tiff would be the way to go for manipulation, the only downside is that it takes a lot of disk space.

I just take all my g3 pics Large superfine.

When i manually import them into photoshop i get 300 resolution.

Resolution plays a big part in retouching photos. The minimum should be 300 and a maximum of 600. OF course you can go higher on the res, but that just wastes more disk space. I have achieved great prints and great quality staying in between these resolutions.

cheers

[stardis]

I've thought about the posts and finally realized that Canon had other software that I didn't have--the File Viewer Utility. I installed it and can now convert from raw to jpeg with this software and then print using EasyPhoto Print. I only had Canon's Raw Image Converter before. Now I have both. This looks like it is going to work well for me. Thanks for enlightening me.

I think that saving a jpeg along with the raw, in the original folder, might be a good idea. Is that what you do?