Working on Jpegs

KK
Posted By
Karla_Kraus
Oct 16, 2008
Views
295
Replies
7
Status
Closed
My computer is custom-built. I have a 450 gig hard drive with oodles of ram and am using the latest PS; currently on Vista Ultimate but switching to XP Pro SP 3 in a few days.

I normally work on tifs and/or psds, and then save as jpegs at the size needed for the job. Now for once someone has sent me some photos as jpegs that need serious editing–two long cracks and a lot of dust. There’s no problem in dealing with this, but should I do all of the editing and a final sharpening of those jpegs and then save once, or is the loss of quality from frequent saving a myth and can I then save each as I go along with editing?

New question I’ve always wondered about: In my normal routine, I sharpen my tifs as a last step before converting them to jpegs. Is this the way to do it, or should I be sharpening my jpegs as a last step?

Karla

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DR
Donald_Reese
Oct 16, 2008
personally,i never save final photos sharpened, because the sharpening requirements may be different down the road, depending how large or small you may need the photo. now if you are finished and need to send it off,thats a different story. i also always work and save images as tiffs to retain as much data as possible.storage is cheap these days.
JJ
Jim_Jordan
Oct 16, 2008
should I be sharpening my jpegs as a last step?

This implies you are re-saving a JPG, which is not ideal.

If you receive JPG files, work on them and save as PSD/TIF. A working file may be opened and resaved several times while in your hands so a lossless format is clearly better than JPG. Even if you think you will only be working on the file once, the client may come back and ask for more changes.

If the client requires JPG, save a JPG copy from the working PSD/TIF file when you return the product.
M
Mylenium
Oct 16, 2008
or is the loss of quality from frequent saving a myth and can I then save each as I go along with editing?

It’s not a myth, it’s an inherent principle of how JPEG works and does the color transformation and subsequent compression. The only times when you can do this, is if throughout a session you keep working on the original file and never reload the modified version from disk (e.g. by using "Revert"). In this case the compression will be based on the expanded buffer Photoshop holds in memory. However, this has the slight disadvantage of loosing all the data if a crash occurs or the program closes otherwise, so do the smart thing and save intermediate PSDs or TIFFs as fallback options as the others suggested.

Mylenium
JM
J_Maloney
Oct 16, 2008
In this case the compression will be based on the expanded buffer Photoshop holds in memory.

This is a good point, this feature helps to propagate the myth that you can re-save JPGs without quickly seeing compression artifacts.
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Dec 3, 2008
For some information about the extent of the losses when saving and resaving as JPEG, take a look at this tutorial of mine <http://camsul.com/tutorials/PixelLossInJPEG/index.html>.
B
Buko
Dec 3, 2008
When given Jpegs always work on a copy, open and save as a PSD or Tif. keep the jpeg as an original if you need to go back to it but never resave it. As was stated in an earlier post disk space is cheap and working on a copy will save your ass more times than not. It will save you even if you are working on PSDs or Tifs.
KK
Karla_Kraus
Dec 3, 2008
All golden! And many thanks for the article, Michael. I’ve passed it on to the Professional Women Photographers Assoc, which is very single-minded and stubborn–but might listen to you because you are a male<g>.

Best,
Karla

Must-have mockup pack for every graphic designer 🔥🔥🔥

Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

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