correct the file is the file, if not opened, and moving it may accrue corruption but that should nowadays be highly rare.
But, who amongst us doesn't open them to see what they are before moving them? If one then hits the 'save' or 'save as' button well, posterization will be your freind eventually.

The TIFF format it safer and don't re-save, better still use a Mac and it automatically keeps the original RAW, which is what you should be shooting anyway.

best regards and keep your archives as safe as you can

To rts 2568. Please re-read my 2 sentence post. My mistake is when I used "move" and didn,t include "copy". The fact is it doesn,t matter if it is a jpeg, txt, doc or what the file extension is, a copy or a move will not alter the file or it,s bit size. Opening it in Windows, closing it and then using a copy or move command to "move" it, will not change it, though there are computer monsters that can come up that can "corrupt" any file. However, when you use software to edit it in any way or just to save it, a jpeg can be re-compresed and do that ofton enough and you darn strait can end up with garbage.

Dusty

I do believe I may have found the answer. At the turn of the century I had several computers which included a DOS only machine (8 bits) and Win 3.0 machine and a Windows Millenium machine (Pre-XP). I think the DOS machine would only handle 256 colours and would discard the rest. It's been a long time, but I think the offending photo was saved or stored onto the DOS computer and moved or saved later to the Millenium machine. If I'm right (might be - might not be) I'm thinking the DOS corrupted the picture and the Millenium machine with Corel 4 and Paintshop on board has (badly) repaired it. I have no idea what software I used to load the DOS machine, I can't even remember what the "D" was (D**** Operating System).

I found a couple more pics in my archive which were beset with banding and posterisation. Both were much worse than my posted photo above but mainly the lighter colours were affected.

To Searcher
From rts2568

Ah, you are so right Searcher, you may very well have put your finger on it. Old operating systems do knock a pixel or two around, found that out myself and apart from old shots brought up for thee benefit of memories. Idealist, young and naive IT personal of today can't see into the pasts limitations, only idealistically into the future and rely on their very recent IT teacher's theoretical lessons. What was or is saved from those old systems will remain as they are if in the RAW or TIFF formats alright, but only what is remaining from the wars of technological storage changes over the past 20 odd years.

rts2568

I still can't make sense of this. What on earth do you mean by "knock a pixel or two around?"

Euphonism for getting messed up and lost etc. I started my ventures into digital on a DOS computer, the software of which could only handle 256 colours. jpgs are millions of colours, and most of those get discarded if opened by the old (ancient) programs. They end up a bit like a GIF file, few colours and serious banding if the file is not designed correctly. I would then have opened the files on a later machine, with Windows 3.0 and software (probably Corel Paint). To open an already corrupt jpg on software looking for lots of colour and not finding any, was probably asking for trouble. The "decompression" further corrupts the file, and the result is horrible. Knocking the pixels around is quite an apt description.

None of that has anything to do with the operating system. The operating system will not mess with your files. Ever.

Thanks for your comments and constructive way of dealing with the problem. The picture is not what I consider a great one to save, nor am I particularly attached to it. I just wondered what on earth had happened to it.


That's exactly what I've always believed.
------------------------------------------------------------
From rts2568
Very misleading information 'achammar'. Saved files, eg, open and save to another location as I suspect some were in this thread, may deteriorate if filed in a lossable format. JPG files are hazardless if being changed from one location to another. Some people I have helped, used to open files as they were "moving(?)\transferring' them, and saving after viewing to the new location.

It is most important for the learners or the inexperienced to understand that JPEG files can detiorate. Better to be sure than sorry!

As to the photo concerned, a useful piece of advice would have been more welcome. The photo concerned is not a good package of data anyway and there are a lot of reasons why this one is not satisfactory as the OP would like, if for no other reason than old images would often have been produced on older hardware with inferior light capturing/handling abilities but, no matter, knowing that a JPEG can lose data while transferring them to other locations, no matter by what method, is more important than being given the impression that they can't.
rts2568

rts2568 - You are saying (in a very kindly manner) the picture is rubbishy. I entirely agree with you. I was trying to get the hang of my first real digital camera at the time, and shot anything and everything in sight. If there were a competition for the worst composition, exposure and focus this one would not win, but I have quite a few serious contenders from those early years. Notice the filename is 0001 - this was the very first pic I took using the Finepix f401 (which I still have but don't use anymore.
------------------------------------------------------------From Mtnman
Both are right. It depends on how you "move" the files. If you use "Save as" to a new location jpegs will deteriorate. You recompress the file.

If you just copy (copy and paste or move) a jpeg from one location to another it will not deteriorate. It makes an exact copy.
Ten years ago, did I "Save As" or did I copy/paste or drag? Difficult one. I hope I dragged as I do now, but certainly would not swear to it. in ten years I've probably had about ten computers and three or four external drives.
------------------------------------------------------------From Elliot Design
You say the image was never PP'd, could you possibly have forgotten that is was retouched at some point years ago? The reason I'm asking is because I'm totally confused how the treetops on the left side are darker than the leaves below them, also this shows in a few more smaller places along the tree horizon and appears to be an attempt to mask the sky area. The white in the sky is a complete washout, I downloaded the file and used a 0% tolerance mask and it chose the whole white area, meaning there are no variations in this whole area. The file seems to be missing color depth all across the spectrum, there are no smooth transitions of color anywhere but that cannot be caused by just copying and moving a file from one storage device to other. You may have used a program that "saved" a copy of the original each time you opened it or you may have just used "Ctrl-S" each time you opened it and closed it, saving jpg's will deteriorate with each new "save" but copying the original only duplicates the 1's and 0's of a digital file and in no way causes any deterioration or changes to the file. Don't just take my word for it, I've only worked with digital images of every major format in my business for 24 years, and I can pull up jpg's that I have moved from computer to computer through hard drives, flash drives, cd's and floppies and the files are exactly the same today as they were years ago.

Definitely no PP, I only started making "improvements" and repairs two years ago, and always save as TIFF or PSD. However you have sewn an idea which MIGHT explain something. I used to use the Fuji viewer to load pics. from my camera to the computer. Although I have no way of checking now, I am wondering if there was some form of applied preset on import.