Saving jpegs

[pdxrjt]

When I use my P&S (or for that matter make a jpeg from RAW in my DSLR).... I do some processing in XI and there is a noticeable drop in picture quality when I save it. Also, there seems to be some drop (albeit much less) when I save it via Export/jpeg optimizer set to a compression value of 1.

Is there a way to work on a jpeg and save it with no loss of original quality? I was wondering about converting to Tif or something, doing the processing and then ultimately saving to jpeg. What do others do to work on jpegs and maintain quality.

[allicorn]

While pushing that compression slider all the way down to 1 will help, JPEG is fundamentally a "lossy" format. This means it always throws out some quality/detail in order to squish the file down. So, if you're going to open-workon-save a file several times, making it a JPEG is gradually going to add up to a really noticable loss of quality.

TIFF is a not a bad choice. It has "lossless" compression. It generally won't make your files as conveniently small as JPEG, but it also won't throw out any quality/detail in order to acheive the compression it can manage.

Saving a PSPIMAGE is really the ideal way to store an image you're going to want to work on again though. It does compress (lossless), though perhaps not all that much. But it has the advantage that all your grid/guide/selection/layer settings are all remembered. Very handy!

Best to save only as JPEG once you know you're absolutely finished with the image.

Alli

[pdxrjt]

That's kind of what I was thinking, but wasn't sure. Thanks for the info!

Take care