On Aug 7, 11:13 am, BF wrote:
Dave wrote:
On Thu, 06 Aug 2009 09:11:03 -0500, John Stafford
OK. It’s not a tiff, its not a jpg, it’s not a psd then what is it? Am I losing anything by opening it in camera raw then opening it in Photoshop and saving as a psd again?
So, why did you clever guys stop answering the OP?
He is waiting for an answer and So am I:-)
I suggest two things: First he should put the file online so we can look at it. (Binary mode transfer)
Then get Irfanview which can open almost anything. Requires Windows.
I use a hex editor to find the file type, or ImageMagick at the command line. $magick > identify -verbose filename.ext
John, his question (the one which had the clever ones fleeing) is at the top. Whether he is losing data, and if not, why worry about the ‘realness’ extension?
Thank you Dave
I can open any of my PSD files in camera RAW as I described earlier. I don’t really care what RAW thinks it is or isn’t I want to know if I lose any data by making changes in Camera RAW and re-saving as a PSD. I think some one asked why would I want to do that. Why not just go back to the original RAW file and start over. Start over being the key words. Since this was a picture from an old P&S digital camera, I did a lot of correction in photoshop and later noticed a red fringe in an area that I didn’t notice to begin with. The lens correction tool in RAW works really well for correcting this. Maybe there is the same tool in CS4 but I haven’t seen it.
Bottom line is what did RAW do to open this image? Is all of the data the same as if I opened it in Photoshop? And am I losing anything by re-saving it as a PSD. If I open a JPG in RAW and re-save it I will obviously lose data. Or will I? If "it’s not really a PSD", like someone said earlier in this post, then is it really a JPG.
It has been mentioned above that, since files almost always include a header signature for this purpose, you can easily find out what it really is by inspecting the file with various utilities (such as those suggested by John above). Unfortunately nobody can do this for you unless you make the file available.
As for "losing data": by saving it as PSD you will be saving the document’s current state without loss. Whether you have done unwanted damage to the document before the point of saving (such as reducing resolution, cropping, adjusting, painting, or flattening layers that you might regret later) is your problem. This overlooks the possibility of minor "loss" involved in setting parameters of the initial conversion of RAW to an open Photoshop document.
In the end, you need to determine what workflow is most useful to you.