Making changes to an image

Let's say I shoot in RAW. I edit as I like and convert it to jpeg. So I now have my original RAW and a edited jpeg. Suppose I forgot to sharpen or want to straighten a horizon; I want to do one more thing to my new jpeg. Do I work on my jpeg and save again? I had heard this causes a breakdown to the image. Would this breakdown show up after another save or after 10 saves? Or do I start all over with my original RAW?

Karen

If you have done nothing else to the jpeg I would start with the RAW again and straigthen the RAW. But if you have already made edits to the jpeg that are not easily reproduced work from the jpeg. As long as you are saving the jpeg at the highest quality setting you shouldn't see noticeable artifacts for quite some time.

Artifacts. That's the word I was trying to remember.

Thanks for the advice. Now I know what to do when I post a picture and certain changes are suggested. Thanks.

Karen

Depends on what you want to do with the pic after? A max jpg from my 20D is 2,754 KB. The exact same shot with the jpg extracted from RAW is 4,315 KB which is 1.57X larger. So if you need to show it on the web, or make a small print like 5X7", you could probably just reedit the jpg & still have more image data than if you'd started with a jpg out of the camera.
I've seen 30X40 before/after prints made after resaving 12 times, & it was very hard to see a difference.

So what I'm hearing is that it would be ok to re-edit a jpeg that has come from RAW and that it wouldn't make a huge difference. But if I were to shoot in jpeg, then the difference might be a bit more noticeable. Right?

Karen

FearlessFoto wrote in post #3415386
So what I'm hearing is that it would be ok to re-edit a jpeg that has come from RAW and that it wouldn't make a huge difference. But if I were to shoot in jpeg, then the difference might be a bit more noticeable. Right?

Karen

Fearless: LOOK HERE

You can see that damage DOES creep in, but not after several iterations.

On anything that I am "working on", I save in TIFF, with layers. Only when I am sending for printing do I save as jpg. But one, two, 5 or (depending on the subject) even 10 saves you will be fine.

Rad

Radtech1 wrote in post #3415417
Fearless: LOOK HERE

You can see that damage DOES creep in, but not after several iterations.

On anything that I am "working on", I save in TIFF, with layers. Only when I am sending for printing do I save as jpg. But one, two, 5 or (depending on the subject) even 10 saves you will be fine.

Rad

Agreed. I do the same thing. Use TIFF for my working files and JPEG only for final output.

I save in TIFF. The file sizes are larger but you dont lose and detail.

I always save my raws and convert to 16 or 8 bit tiffs and then work on the files as tiffs. Then convert to JPG. I like to keep my raws the way the were shot.

So now that tiff is being thrown into the mix, I guess I had better try to understand it. Let's say I take one photo in RAW. Then I'd convert it into a dng. Why? I don't know, I just do. Then I'd convert the RAW into a tiff. This is where I'd work on it and, when all done, I'd finally save it as a jpeg for online viewing or ordering. So in the end I'd have a RAW, a dng, a tiff, and a jpeg all for the one shot I took.

Or, let's say I take several pictures of one of my kid's birthdays. From RAW I could convert to dng, convert to jpeg, make minor adjustments as needed, and order. Quick and easy. I don't have to go all out for every photo, do I? Yikes.

Karen

Don't bother with the DNG.

I save tiffs at various intervals of processing (I have learned the hard way that computers crash ONLY when you are simultaneously working on about 6 to 10 images, for an hour each, and have not saved any of them along the way! - 6 to 10 images!, oh the horror of adult ADHD!)

Once I get it read for the printer I go back and delete all of the intermediate tiffs, keeping the last one to work on when I decide to tweak it just a little bit more, and also keeping the jpg for no good reason other than to send to the printer again if I want.

But thats just me.

Rad

I think I've got it and will now start doing things this way - as long as dng and tiff serve the same purpose. I'm happy with the idea of deleting the intermediate "saves" so that my organizer doesn't have tons of the same image in different stages. I love organizing, can't stand extra stuff just lying about.

Thanks to everyone,
Karen

Radtech1 wrote in post #3418034
Don't bother with the DNG.

I save tiffs at various intervals of processing (I have learned the hard way that computers crash ONLY when you are simultaneously working on about 6 to 10 images, for an hour each, and have not saved any of them along the way! - 6 to 10 images!, oh the horror of adult ADHD!)

Once I get it read for the printer I go back and delete all of the intermediate tiffs, keeping the last one to work on when I decide to tweak it just a little bit more, and also keeping the jpg for no good reason other than to send to the printer again if I want.

But thats just me.

Rad

I would like to add that when we use TIFFs we typically have adjustment layers in our images. So when you save something in stages you can always change that adjustment layer later on. If you make changes to a photo without adjustment layers and then save the file you can't easily go back and adjust those changes if needed.

I think it is time to point out a great resource for Photoshop editing:

www.ronbigelow.com/art​icles/articles.htm

You can also save channel masks with tiffs.

I usually save web jpgs in the root folder (top folder) as a handy index to what's in the RAW & Converted folders.
For simple shots that are only cropped & sharpened in PS, I usually delete the tiff after 'cause RawShooter saves the changes made in conversion & I don't need to keep the 3X+ size of the tiff.
For instance, I use the RSE/RSP Snapshot feature & I can save several versions if I need a light & dark exposure for contrast control. The saved conversion info only takes up about 1KB of disk space.
OTOH, I'll save complex tiffs with a lot of layers & selections AS TIFFs, because if I'd saved as .psd, then I'd have both the .psd file & the original .tif on the hard drive, & who needs that?

This is only if you are saving, the re-saving, then re-saving etc. right? I mean, if you open a duplicate jpg and work off that you will still have the original to draw back on.