Barbara
You should be concerned about loss of information.
Jpg/Jpeg is lossy and although one save will generally not destroy your image the more times you save the worse it will get.
Here is what to do. What is saved as jpg now is ok don’t touch that. If and when you do any work on an image that is going to entail a save then save it as either Tiff or PSD and all will be saved.
Grant
Barbra…
You are about to get a lot of technical answers to your concern…. the short answer…. Save to TIFF…for some reason (which I am sure will be explained) JPG’s seem to loose their quality…. So TIFF seems be the File Type of choise…. But let me also say this (I learned the hard way LOL) if you are manipulating an image and wish to save it to work on it another day.. save as a PSD File…. if you save it as a JPG it will Merge… not too sure about if that happens with TIFF or not .. bit I ain’t takin chances.. 😀
david
P.S.
Welcome to the Elements Forum.. stick around you’ll get all kinds of support, answers etc etc…
LOL.. Hey Grant.. Looks like we were typing at the same time…
Barbara,
1.I download my files from the camera via a card reader to a new folder on my desktop
2.Next I burn a CD with these files. That is my "film"
3.I open a file that I want to work on in Elements , right click, and duplicate image. Then I drag down the duplicate image a little, highlight the original, and close it.
4. I proceed in Elements with the duplicate. I like to save it in PSD after the process in Elements.
5. Eventually I delete the files that I created in step#1 from the hard drive. It has happened that I want to revisit a certain file and I can do this from the CD (my film). This has happened when I have learned about a new or better way to enhance something, usually from someone on this board.
6. Of course you can always save the masterpieces in a special file for subsequent viewing and/or printing.
Ken
Kenneth,
"I open a file that I want to work on in Elements , right click, and duplicate image. Then I drag down the duplicate image a little, highlight the original, and close it."
Could you explain why?
You saved your "film", so nothing can harm it any more. Why not work on the file on your hard drive and save the final result as PSD or TIFF? In case of emergency you can always go back to the cd.
Leen
Leen,
I do save all of the most recent pictures as they come out of the card reader on my hard drive as JPEG for a while, then delete them. You are right, I can always access one from the "film" at a later time. The pictures that I have worked on and desire to retain are saved as PSD. Saving on TIFF is great but the file size is large.
Working on the duplicate copy initially appeals to me because then I don’t have to open and re-open the original file repeatedly. I am led to believe that this precludes degradation. Just last week I spent considerable time on one picture and had a go at it from start to finish three times until it met my standard. You had just posted a way to make a picture in black and white with a portion of it in color; I tried this and love the way it came out but in order to do this I started over again from the JPEG.
Ken
I suppose we have all created workflow that we are comfortable using. As far as I can see, opening a JPEG image numerous times should not cause any degradation of the image unless you save the file and then reopen it. The JPEG or the TIF or whatever file you use is just a container to hold data. Once the image is loaded, you are not editing a JPEG or a TIF; you are editing pixels. If you save an edited image as a JPEG, you will lose some quality in the saving process because of the compression method used.
What I like to do is open the JPEG that was downloaded from my camera. I do most of my editing using adjustment layers. So when I go to save my edited image, it prompts me to save it as a PSD or TIF image depending on which one of those I have been using most recently. I save all of my edited working in a separate subfolder.
I have had several people tell me that I’m going to get bit by this process one day. They are probably right, but I have been doing it this way now for a number of years and don’t see any need to change.
If I’m concerned about data loss, which is the best format to save my files in, TIFF or PSD?
Can other programs read PSD? Is it a proprietary file format?
For example I don’t exclusively use Photoshop to edit my images. I assuem I can’t expect other rpograms ot be able to read PSD format, right?
Barbara
TIFF has more universal acceptance than PSD. PSD is an Adobe priority file format and is much more powerful when using Photoshop and Elements. Most high end graphic programs have no trouble handling PSD . For my part I use two other competing graphic programs that I use as well and I save in PSD. All being said TIFF is a standard that is far better entrenched. While you should have no problems saving in either format if portability is your prime concerned you probably can’t go far wrong by saving in TIFF.
Grant
While you are still working on an image, it is best to save it either as a PSD or a TIF image since either one of these formats is a lossless format. Then, you want to use that image in another program, save a copy of the image in the appropriate file format. The PSD and TIF images will both save all of your layers. But many of the other file formats will require that you flatten the image before you can save it.
HI Guys ….
May I jump in with a question of my own…. Whenever I am working on an image where I am using layers… I usually save in PSD so when I re-open all my layers are still there.. mind you this makes for an extriemly large file…. anyway…. back to what I’m asking…. if I save in TIFF will the individual layers still be there…. I suppose I can do the "try it and see" method.. but hay I’m lazy and can’t think of anything to bug Grant about today.. 😀
david
David
The answer is yes if you click on save layers but it will generate a larger file than saving in PSD … unless you use compression and I am not sure of that happens then so I will leave this as an exercise for you. Remember if you save layers in TIFF a program that doesn’t take advantage of layers will disregard this extra data.
Grant
Grant_Dixon wrote:
David
The answer is yes if you click on save layers but it will generate a larger file than saving in PSD … unless you use compression and I am not sure of that happens then so I will leave this as an exercise for you. Remember if you save layers in TIFF a program that doesn’t take advantage of layers will disregard this extra data.
There are options for compression after you choose TIF. I use the LZW option.
Also tried the zip option in TIF.
PSD – 40M
TIF/LZW – 24M
TIF/ZIP – 23M
If you have a fast processor, the extra time required to save a compressed TIF may work.
Ed
Ed
As much as I suspected but I just still wanted David to do the work! 😉
Grant
Although a TIFF does allow for compression, it uses a type of compression (LZW) which has many variants. Thus unless you just use compression for personal archiving it’s best not to compress TIFF files. A GIF also compresses via LZW, however there are around 50 variants of LZW and since they are copyrighted and not all available to all TIFF accepted files, someone else might not be able to uncompress them without using the same program that created them.
Bob
