Photoshop raw to jeg

Can anyone help?

I have just converted 10 photo from my last shoot to Jpeg. When I converted I kept all the setting to maximum to ensure keeping as much detail as poss. When the conversion was finished i notice each photo had reduced from the 8 meg original to 4 meg.

Is this normal for such a reduction in meg or have I done something wrong during the conversion?

Thanks Antony

Yes, that's normal. JPG is a lossy format. You should be converting to TIFF if you want to make sure you keep all data intact. Your file size will be much larger as a TIFF.

Is the Tiff step necessary?

TIFF as an end format, not an intermediate step. TIFF is a "lossless" compression, where Jpeg is a "lossy" compression. Every time you re-save a JPEG, some further compression (and loss of detail) will occur. By saving your edited files as TIFF, you eliminate this problem.

Thanks,

So it's Raw-Jpeg-Tiff?

For me it's Raw->TIFF. Jpeg is for the final image when I want to put it on the web. If you go from Raw to Jpeg, you're throwing away detail in the compression. Going from there to TIFF isn't going to get that detail back.