On 2/8/03 2:56 pm, "Stephen Shepherd" wrote:

> On 2/8/03 13:59, "Ellie Kennard"
>> 
>> Just to reiterate a point made by another poster on the list. It is a very
>> bad idea to save a jpg over a jpg. This degrades the file, which you said
>> you didn't want to do.

Correct. And more importantly, its more Important than the original
question.


> Maybe I am being a bit vague here or just dumb but this is why I am a little
> confused. I know I do not want to save a .jpg over a .jpg but what seems to
> happen is that once imported from the camera the .jpg file is in  a folder,
> I then open the .jpg, I may want to change the saturation  so I do this
> after which when I hit save I get the .jpg option box up in photoshop asking
> if I want to save at 1 through to 12.

You do indeed seem a little confused. I don't have an answer to your
original question. BUT, I would point out that the answer will not really
benefit you if you knew it. I can't really believe why people are trying to
answer it without pointing out something far more important.

You are shooting your camera files as [jpg], fine, no problem there, as far
as I'm concerned. It would be marvellous if we could all shoot RAW, but its
not always possible, and not always necessary. The amount of loss caused by
the original compression (jpg-ing) is fairly minimal, and almost certainly
invisible to the human eye, though I'm sure many will disagree with this,
its a fact. Next you open up the file in Photoshop (personally I do a
lossless rotation in Graphic Converter before this, as all my stuff is shot
vertically. In case anyone is not aware, you can rotate a JPG without saving
it, using certain software, you cannot however, open it in PS, rotate it and
save it, that will degrade your image).

What next, you have the file open in PS? Well,

DO NOT SAVE AS A JPG!!!!

Sorry for shouting, but it needs stressing. Do not save the file again as a
JPG (unless you choose the JPG 2000 format, which apparently is not
lossless, or you have no interest in photography and producing a reasonable
result  :-) but you DO NOT want to save using any other format of JPG.

So what do you do? Save it as something not lossey. I'd personally choose
either TIFF or PSD, PSD being smaller, but not recognised by all other
software. I use TIFF but most people will be fine with PSD.

Think of it this way. A jpg file produced by your camera is your "negative"
once it leaves the camera and arrives on your computer, do not touch it ever
again. Do not assign it a colourspace, do not assign it a copyright notice.
Both are unnecessary. This is your negative, it is never sent out from your
computer (darkroom) it does not need that information attached to it. By all
means attach that info to the Working file, the TIFF or PSD that you create
from your original, but do not do any work on the original. There is no
need, nor is there any point. Always use the working file, or multiple
working files if necessary.


Regards Paul

PS - RAW v JPG  - as I pointed out on another list recently. RAW is better
than JPG, it contains more original data. However this does not mean that
everyone needs to shoot RAW files. In an ideal world they would. But the
world is not ideal, just yet and JPG files made on the camera and not
resaved afterwards, will be absolutely fine for most peoples uses. As an
example, I've shot magazines, A4 full bleed glossy magazines, with JPG files
and I doubt if there was a single soul in the world, that could have spotted
the difference, between my JPG's and a RAW file shot at the same time.
-- 
Paul Tansley
Fashion & Beauty Photography
London
+44 (0) 7973 669584
http://www.paultansley.com

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