I’ve been working on a picture for a couple days. Not paying attention, I converted it to 16-bit and continued working on it. When I got to a good stopping point I saved it as a JPG-encoded TIFF (just like every other time) but now Photoshop won’t open it again. In fact, nothing will. Is there any way to get my picture back whilst maintaining layers?
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I don’t understand what you just said, but yes I’m aware that jpg tiff are lossy, that’s beside the point. I want to open the file again so I can continue to work on it, I made an unfortunate mistake and just wondering if there’s a way to change it back.
Awesome, it almost feels good to know that I found something no one else has (purportedly). Would you happen to know any other program I could use to open the file as 16-bit and save it as something else in 8-bit?
FWIW, I just tried saving a 16-bit image as JPEG-compressed TIFF in Photoshop CS3beta, and it’s impossible to do so. The JPEG button is grayed out, inactive.
I then quit CS3 beta, launched Photoshop 9.0.2 (CS2), and I got the SAME result. It’s impossible.
Quit CS2 and launched Photoshop 7.0.1, and got the SAME result.
How were two different users posting in this thread manage to save a 16-bit image as a TIFF with JPEG compression?
Yeah I can’t save a 16bit tiff with Jpeg compression either. So who really knows what the OP really did. I would not trust saving anything of value with Jpeg compression.
What you’re missing is that the original poster saved the file as TIFF/JPEG compressed while it was 8-bit, then converted it to 16 bit and saved it on close.
TIFF with JPEG compression is not something I ever do, and neither is converting from 8 bit to 16 bit.
I have a feeling pretty nobody but the original poster has ever done this combination of things!
Saving an 8bit file as 16bit is fairly useless as you can’t add info that is not there. saving with Jpeg compression is useless as it is lossy. Hopefully the OP has learned a valuable lesson.
What you’re missing is that the original poster saved the file as TIFF/JPEG compressed while it was 8-bit, then converted it to 16 bit and saved it on close.
Good point I just managed to recreate the OP’s problem (using CS), seems to be a bug in the interface, since it should warn you that JPEG compression is not supported in 16-bit.
If the OP is lucky, he can open his image with Graphic Converter…
This is a bit of a tangeant from this discussion, but Buko said something that sparked my interest:
"I would not trust saving anything of value with Jpeg compression."
Our department saves PS EPS files for print using the following criteria: 300dpi resolution, Macintosh (8 bits/pixel) preview, Jpeg (high quality) encoding.
Do you have any concerns with doing it this way? If so, why? What would best? Keep in mind that our prints don’t have to be magazine quality we are just doing shared mail ads (pizza coupons, etc.)
Also, my supervisor mentioned that our EPS files shouldn’t include vector data (checkbox on EPS Options dialog). Does this matter? I would think it would produce better print quailty on shapes and other vector elements created in the PSD.
I’d have concerns if the files kept getting reopened and resaved.
Also, my supervisor mentioned that our EPS files shouldn’t include vector data (checkbox on EPS Options dialog). Does this matter?
The problem with EPS files with vector data included in them is that they have to be rasterized when reopening them, thus losing all benefits of vector data. I’d save as PSD instead.
Cyber, saving as JPEG as you do with a final version of a file is fine. They only reason I can think of to do this would be for uploading the files to an FTP server or other similar situations.
But for documents that need to be worked and reworked, requiring them to be opened, edited, closed & saved, I wouldn’t do this.
Cyber, saving as JPEG as you do with a final version of a file is fine.
I know, and while I have no concerns with saving as JPEG once, I actually don’t do it unless I really have to (which means someone else insisted on it)
Jpeg has its place. I do use Jpegs for the web. or sending something by email.
that said I would not use jpeg compression for anything else.
I even prefer zip compression on my PDFs.
Disk space is cheap and plentiful why take a chance on something being degraded? Also EPS files are a thing of the past unless you are still stuck in the Quark Ages. Stick with native Photoshop files, Illustrator files, or Tiffs with ZIP compression. Even Tiffs with LZW are better than Jpeg compression.
the original poster saved the file as TIFF/JPEG compressed while it was 8-bit, then converted it to 16 bit and saved it on close.
Ah! Thanks for that bit of enlightenment.
If it’s possible to do that, then it’s definitely a bug. This should be posted on the CS3 beta forum for correction in CS3.
Reminds me of a bug in one of the versions of the old Mac OS (I forget which one, maybe 7.x?) where you would get a bomb and a total computer freeze if you duplicated a file in the trash.
While no one in his right mind would deliberately do that, anything that crashes a computer is a bug, period.
Same here. Any repeatable action that causes the loss of a file has to be considered a bug.
Graphic Converter opens the file but only as a totally corrupted image in which you can barely see traces of the original image.
It was impossible to recreate it in CS3 beta, as the beta returns a "Program Error" when you attempt to save the 16-bit JPEG-encoded TIFF. Hard to tell if that’s by design or by accident.
Once again, glad to just have it reinforced that I’ve done something that’s never supposed to be done and has never been done. Now that we’re done rubbing it in my face, does anyone have any solutions on fixing it?
If the OP is lucky, he can open his image with Graphic Converter…
There is also my plugin <http://telegraphics.com.au/sw/#tifflibplugin> the OP can try – as an alternative to Photoshop’s built-in TIFF reader, it uses libtiff and hence opens/saves JPEG TIFFs (libjpeg) as well as some codecs that PS doesn’t. It doesn’t support layered TIFFs (if they’re even documented).
It actually thought about it this time, when before, it would just pop up the error message. Unfortunately this popped up: "Could not complete your request because of a problem with the file-format module interface." You might be on to something though…
It appears there is no hope, I’ve posted this on many other forums and I get all the same replies, "Don’t do it in the first place," "You’re screwed," and "Try using (insert miracle program here)." Nothing’s worked so I’m just going to scrap it and stick with 8-bit from now on. Thanks for your help and I guess I served the purpose of being the canon for this situation. Too bad it’s so soon to when CS3 comes out otherwise I could have gotten my name on the Adobe credit roll, "Thanks to Syrh for doing the unthinkable…"
Nothing’s worked so I’m just going to scrap it and stick with 8-bit from now on.
The problem is not so much 16-bit files, as 16-bit files saved with JPEG encoding. My advice would be to avoid JPEG encoded TIFFs. As far as I’m concerned, your misadventure is yet another reason to avoid them
I ran across this a few years ago while running Prepress for a commercial printer. Outside freelance designer used JPEG encoding cause it printed faster to his colour printer. also he could collect jobs to less CDs {pre-DVD days, QX 4.11}. So he claimed.
My boss decided I "wasn’t helping" because I could not open, retouch colour correct or print this job. Big part of why i am now back n Advertising… Jpeg encoding should be avoided. And up-to-date hardware makes it largely unneccesary…
You are not gaining anything by converting an 8 bit file to a 16 bit file other than using more disk space. Getting a 16bit image from your digital RAW camera files is much different than changing an 8 bit file to 16 bit which is what the OP did.
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