Dragonophile

OK, my PERSONAL takeaways from all these posts:

Degradation after a modest number of jpeg edits (3-5) (if saved at highest level) are not easily discernible for most people unless you go to poster size and studiously look for it.

If you are a professional photographer - or one aspiring for publication - it makes sense to use lossless formats at all times.

If you are a hobbyist like me who shoots a couple hundred shots on some days of objects that may be distant and may have some distortion due to air movements, then its probably fine to edit most photos once or twice in jpeg format. I might want to do a tiff conversion to the occasional photo that I find especially appealing but time/storage space would preclude too many tiff & raw files.

I just need to take my time on jpeg editing so I get it right the first time or two rather than doing preliminary edits (cropping; straightening horizons) and then going back later to do further editing refinements.

I AM A HOBBYIST, so don't obsess over potential degradation that I can't personally detect.

Loved Andy's comment: "No complaints here that you have to shoot in RAW to be a real photographer." With one fell swoop he excluded all people who use film from being "real photographers"! [Smiley Face]

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Hey, I resemble that remark!

Most who habitually shoot film are automatically included in the pro club! Didn’t mean to leave anyone out!

Andy

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

I thought he meant he doesn't complain, like some others do, that you have to shoot RAW to be a real photographer.

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Yes. That’s what I meant. JPEGs, film, and RAW all have a place. RAW’s flexibility is why I use it, but if I’m shooting “documentation” photos of construction details for work, I seldom bother. I’m not going to edit them, beyond a single exposure correction if needed, and I don’t want to bother dragging them through Lightroom.

Andy

Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

Sounds good to me. Glad the thread went well.

Mike

no12mo

Yes!

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

So long as all your editing is done in one setting, with no “work in progress” saves, this works.

If not, you’ll need to convert to a lossless format like TIFF or DNG, do your work on that file, then save as a JPEG. If you’re gonna make subsequent edits, just go back to the TIFF to do them, and save a new JPEG.

Andy

Jimmy T Loc: Virginia

How about pulling up the file (JPEG or RAW) that you want to work on, make your desired changes and save the modified file as follows:
(original file) IMG_0855.JPG save as (new and additional file) IMG_0855.01.JPG thus keeping your original file safe and unharmed.
The only downside is that you now have increased your number of files, however, they will be stored consecutively.
Remember storage is cheap now.

Fellow Hoggers, is this correct?

Smile,
JimmyT Sends

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

It's correct that this will only produce one generation of compression. If you wish to make further changes or edits, you need to re-open the original, duplicate (or not) the changes you made to get to the image you like better (or not, if you'd rather start fresh), and then re-save the new version. Where the JPEG process fails (at least in my work) is when you make a series of "almost" changes, especially over a period of time when you can't recall exactly which changes you made to the original image. If you attempt to make "progress" saves, then each and every time you hit that save button you will lose a little bit of IQ. Depending on the subject and exposure, I've noticed this in as few as three lossy saves. If you want to use JPEGs and do significant editing, I recommend that you convert to TIFF, PSD, etc. and only save as a JPEG when you reach your final export image. Obviously, others have different opinions, but if you can see the loss in as few as 3-5 saves, why compromise?

My biggest regret is that I didn't switch to RAW much earlier in my digital journey. You can always convert to and work in JPEG format, but you can't go back and reconstruct a RAW file from data that's not there.

Andy

Jimmy T Loc: Virginia

Andy
Thanks for the clarification.
I sometimes run the file image number out to xx.03.JPEG (IMG_8803.03.JPEG) or greater, always keeping the original unaltered, until I find what makes me happy.
Smile,
JimmyT Sends

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

That seems like a reasonable compromise if you want to avoid RAW. I hope you double capture though, cuz you never know when you might decide you wanted to go back and mess with them (storage is cheap, as a wise man once said!). But if your edits are minimal, high rez JPEGs are not going to be all that different from the JPEGs you export from LR, PS, or whatever other software you use for RAW post processing. At least on the first or second generation...

Andy

Jimmy T Loc: Virginia

Andy

I also o the same when I edit in RAW

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

As long as you retain the original image in a lossless format, you really can't go wrong.

Andy

hassighedgehog Loc: Corona, CA

In Photoshop Elements if you use "save as" it automatically sets up the save as file as xxxx-editied-1 so there is no need to mess with the file number. If you "save as" again from that file you might need to change the 1 to 2. This also labels it as an edited file. Usually the only reason I might have a "edited-2" is that I start from the original and decide to do different edits to get a different effect, so it really is a "edited-1" with a different look, but has to have a different file number to save that version.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

I think I made the comment about the third page of this thread.....why edit anything but a copy of the original jpeg? By doing that you never lose the original photo. I'm surprised this thread is still alive.