Elements 5.0 - Converting Raw to JPeg procedure ?

[us2000iceman]

I saw the sticky about this at the top, but wanted some feedback on a proposed method for converting Raw to jpeg in Elements 5.0. I'm assuming camera shops will mostly process only in JPEG (first, could someone confirm that statement?)

Here is how i currently do this conversion

After processing in Raw I select "open image". This opens the image in the normal editing window
Now from here for some reason, if you select "File/Save As" it will give a bunch of saving options however a normal JPEG is NOT one of them. So....
So i do this : I crop as needed first (4x6), then I select the whole picture using the rectangular marqee tool
I select Edit / Copy (Control C)
I select File / New / image from Clipboard
It asks (forces me) to select "convert depth"
Then...it allows me to save as a normal JPEGThis works for me but I'm not sure its technically correct to retain pure quality. I need some feedback. I notice that the 8Mg RAW file i started with is now 2-3Mg at most after i save as JPEG. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks !

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[eddarr]

The reason you are unable to save the raw file as a jpeg is because it is still 16bit. There is a selection at the bottom of the ACR box that allows you to choose 8bit or 16bit when you open the image. You can also convert it to 8bit in elements by going to Image/Mode/8bits channel.

You are better of keeping the image as 16bit for as long as possible. But elements does not support 16bit work in layers so at some point you will have to convert to 8bit anyway. You can save the file as a tiff or psd these both support 16bit and you can keep the layers active.

If you are cropping the image down to a 4x6 then 2-3mb is actually fairly large. If you are resizing the image down to 4x6 then that is smaller than I would expect.

[us2000iceman]

Thanks so much for the help !