Saving my cr2 RAW files to a JPEG in CS2

[reemas]

Help! I'm finished work on a RAW .CR2 file in Photoshop CS2. I want to save it as a JPEG not a 30+ MB tiff file! But for some reason I do not see this option in the save dialog. Am I doing something wrong?

http://images.dpchallenge.com/images_portfolio/24599/orig/188678.jpg

[mickle]

You need to make sure it is in 8 bit mode before you can save as a jpg

Image>Mode>8Bits/Channel

[CyberPet]

Is it 8 bit or 16-bit? Not sure jpeg supports 16-bit and that coudl be the lack of choise to save as a jpeg.

[reemas]

thanks a lot. i made it 8 bit. two follow up questions:

1.) When I save as JPEG, I can adujst the quality slider. If I select MAXIMUM it moves to 10. Yet the highest value is 12. Is there a difference? In printing?

2.) Going from 16bit to 8bit, do I lose something?

[CyberPet]

As long as you keep your original raw-file you don't have to worry... cuz jpeg *is* a destructive compression format, so you'll lose quality there, even if you save in highest quality.... plus if you choose to edit the image later, the 16-bit is more forgiving than 8-bit, since you have more to play with in 16-bit processing. So save your orignal file and go back to it when you need. You can save the adjustments you did in raw for later.