Photoshop and Lightroom Beginner Questions

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Greg maklae on September 9, 2010 at 10:52am

I would do a SAVE AS to TIFF. This is a nondestructive format. Every time you adit and save a jpeg, you cause deterioration of the image. When done editing you can do a SAVE AS back to jpeg.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Gina Michaels Photography on September 9, 2010 at 1:32pm

I want to start shooting in RAW but am nervous. I do not know the first thing about it. So you edit in JPEG? Ithought you weren't supposed to do that? So confused on all of this. :)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Matt Needham on September 10, 2010 at 6:52am

Set the camera to Raw + Jpeg, and you can have both.

You can also process the raw file with the raw processing software that came with your camera, and you should be able to duplicate an in-camera jpeg exactly. It will have the exact same settings available as the processing settings on you camera.

The issue with jpegs is that they are compressed a bit more each time they are saved. So if you open - edit - save - open - edit - save - open - edit - save - etc... eventually compression artifacts can be introduced. Most DSLRs are also capable of more bit depth, larger color space, etc... than fits in a jpeg file. If you start with a jpeg all that has already been discarded. If you start with raw you have that stuff to take advantage of if you want. Once you open a jpeg in LR, ACR, or CS the Adobe software is treating it like an 8 bit PSD/TIFF (uncompressed image file format) anyway, but when you go to save (as a jpeg) it compresses it again.

I shoot raw, process the raw in Adobe Camera Raw (which is the same as Lightroom), and then export to a jpeg for printing. If I have to go into Photoshop to edit I save that as a 16 bit PSD or TIFF as long as I'm still processing. The final step is saving that as a jpeg, but I always have the TIFF/PSD/RAW file to go back to to re-process if need be.

While designed for raw processing Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw are just as good for processing jpegs as most other software. They use much of the same methods as are built into Photoshop, but the non-destructive editing techniques are done automatically for the photographer.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Gina Michaels Photography on September 9, 2010 at 1:31pm

Thanks! What about PSD or soemthing. Its the photoshop extension i think or is TIFF the way to go?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Matt Needham on September 10, 2010 at 7:07am

PSD is Adobe's version of the TIFF. It offers a few more options, and tends to be smaller. If I need to save a file with layers I use PSD. If I'm saving a flattened image (no layers), and I'm pretty much done processing I usually go with TIFF. It's hard to find programs that won't recognize PSD these days, but it is a proprietary format.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on September 9, 2010 at 1:41pm

How much do you shoot? How much do you care about your images? And, how do you back up your files?

At some point you will discover RAW files contain more data and by processing them yourself instead of having the camera process them, you can have access to that data. This makes changing white balance easier and allows you to deal more effectively with shadow and highlight even when the exposure is correct.

Whether you shoot RAW or JPEG, if you care about your photos, the first thing you should do once you have uploaded them from the camera/card is to copy the files to a safe place, I prefer DVD's because once written and closed, they are read only so accidental erasure is not possible and they will last for years with minimal care. You could also save them to a second physical hard drive, either a second drive installed in a tower or an external hard drive. This method is easier but not quite as secure.

Once you have a backup of your files in a safe place, you are ready for editing. The program you use will have some bearing on the files you use, most programs are happy to edit a JPEG or the RAW file from your camera and you can save the resulting work as a JPEG. Photoshop sometimes likes to save a file as PSD, which usually takes up a lot of space. You would want to save in this format if you were using layers and wanted to save the file without flattening it so that you could return to the same place in your editing and have the layers available. If you were through editing you would want to save the final version as a JPEG, PNG, TIFF, or GIF depending upon what you were going to do with the file. Lightroom likes to save files in DNG format which is Adobe's equivalent to RAW.

The concern with JPEG is that it is a compressed format that throws out information during the compression process. Typically I only open a file for editing a few times, during the initial process I do most of what I feel is necessary then I save the file as a JPEG with some character tacked onto the file name so I know it has been edited. Later the edited file may be opened again and cropped or resized and sharpened, then saved again as a JPEG with another character, or a size, tacked onto the file name. Since the file is only opened, modified and saved a very few times, and since I always save the file at the best quality and largest file size, working entirely with JPEG is not harmful. If the file were opened and re-saved a few hundred times, or if it were opened and saved repeatedly with more compression and less quality, then it would loose its quality. Having made a backup of the original file (and since I save my edited file with a new name), even if I totally mess up the file while editing it, I can just drop it and go back to my original file and start over.

When working on a file, the first time I save it I choose Save As, which lets me add to the file name. If I continue to work on that file, without closing it and opening it again, then I just choose Save which overwrites the file I saved using Save As. You can edit and save your present work as many times as you like with no degradation to the file since the quality of what you are saving is not changing. It is only repeated opening, saving and closing of the file that causes degradation.

TIFF is a fairly large format and if you edit a TIFF and save the change by overwriting the original, the file is changed so you can not go back to the original. This is the same as with a JPEG. The only relevant difference is that a TIFF is uncompressed or in some cases uses a lossless compression so the act of opening, saving and closing it does not degrade it.

RAW is pretty cool, as is DNG, because the edits are kept in a separate file so the original pixels are always available. In most instances in order to put them on the web, you have to convert them to something else and the most common format for that is JPEG. If you have a printer, you can print directly from Photoshop or Lightroom, or convert the files to JPEG and use any third party program to print. Most of the kiosks only accept JPEG format for printing.

PNG is a format supported by some web browsers. It may have a slight size advantage over JPEG, I believe I have only seen one application where submitting in PNG format was required.

GIF uses a limited colour set so files are very small. Frequently animations you see on the web are GIF files which cycle through several images stored in a single file.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Gina Michaels Photography on September 9, 2010 at 1:50pm

Wow this was very helpful but now I have a few questions haha. So I am obvisouly just learning photshop but have bought some preset actions which i defintely plan to use and in layers. So you think the best way for me to edit would be as PSD or PNG. I defintely dont want to lose any image quality and I dont mind saving it as somehting else and then chaning it back to Jpeg. i just want to do whatever is the best for my photos. I really only work on one photo at a time until i am finished with it. if anyhting i go back ,aybe one more time to double check and tweak anything. So with that is it ok to just edit in JPEG? That is how you do it correct? But i will be adding layers, cropping, etc. What is the best way to edit them and have no loss or very minimal loss of quality, TIFF, JPEG, PSD, or PNG?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on September 9, 2010 at 2:19pm

Gary is correct about Lightroom being mainly for RAW files and sending a TIFF to Photoshop. I tried Lightroom and did not like it, so I don't use it. I use either Photoshop CS5 or Photoshop Elements 7 or 8 depending on what I am doing. I also use the Canon software.

I shoot raw, I used to shoot JPEG, then RAW + JPEG but eventually dropped the JPEG to conserver card space when I realized that I was processing from RAW mostly anyway. Canon provides Digital Photo Professional on the CDs that come with the camera and the current version can be downloaded from their web page. It can do a batch conversion from RAW to JPEG for those times when I want that, and you can edit individual files before the conversion so it is very effective.

Lightroom and Photoshop CS5 ship with Camera Raw 6, which has the best noise software I have tried. I have not tried Noise Ninja so do not know how it compares. Photoshop CS5 has Bridge which is a browser that can display RAW files and if you double click one, it opens into Camera Raw. Once adjusted, the file can be opened into Photoshop proper where you can continue to edit it. Sometimes I use layers but once I am happy with the editing I flatten the file so the layers are gone. Once editing is done, I just save it as a JPEG. Frequently, that is the whole process. Sometimes I need a different size or different crop so I just open the JPEG and make the change. And I can always go back to the RAW file and start where I left off with editing in Camera Raw if necessary.

I only save to PSD if I have everything open and am called away. That way if I come back after a power failure, I can pick up where I left off. A PSD file may be 70 MB for a JPEG that is 6 MB, so I keep very few PSD files. If you save a JPEG in lowest compression and best quality, you can open, save and close it a dozen times or more and no one will notice any degradation.

Once you have been using the programs for a while you will understand your work flow and where you need to pause and save your work so you can do what you need efficiently.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Gary Vernon on September 9, 2010 at 1:49pm

Hi Gina,
you need to access your camera menu and switch your image quality from jpeg over to Raw.
Lighroom is essentially for developing raw images not jpegs.
Once you are happy with white balance adjustment or whatever you choose to edit in that program, lightroom will transfer the file with a tiff extension over to Photoshop where you will do your further editing such as levels and sharpening in that format, the very last thing you should do is then 'save as' whatever name you give the file and in jpeg format for either the web or for print. Tiff is a non compressed file format unlike a jpeg and will not deteriorate through constant editing and saving.
And at the end of the day you still have your unchanged raw to start again with if everything goes pear shaped lol.
The psd extension is a file format you should use when your image includes layers, the image can then be re-opened at a later stage with no loss of information so for example you can continue where you left off editing a line of text - hope this helps,
Gary..

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Gina Michaels Photography on September 9, 2010 at 2:03pm

Ok I think this weekend i am going to take some pcitures in RAW and try to figure it out. When you shoot in RAW and upload it you then have to do whitebalance etc every time?.... And when i do shoot in RAW do i just leave it with that extension when editing in lightroom and then when i move over to photoshop it will aoutmatically becaome a TIFF file or do I need to do that myself?

For the current photos i need to edit, they are in JPEG so what should i do with those since its too late for RAW? Just chagne them to TIFF myself then edit, then chnge back to Jpeg?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Glenn P on September 9, 2010 at 8:59pm

Gina, When you open an images for editing (no matter what type, Jpeg, tiff,etc) and start editing the original images is not being harmed or changed. PS creates a copy in its cache for editing. It only over writes the original when you do "save". So if you do a "save as" it creates a totally new image independent of the original. The original is still intact.

When I do my images, I create a new folder and copy the images i want to edit. I open that images in PS for editing. When I achived a desired result I do a "save as" and select JPEG as type. Try not to flatten your images before saving if your want to do revisions on it. In this case your layers are all seperates. At the end of the session I do another "save as" and select PSD so that it is save in PS format and when you open it again for editing the previous work or layers are still availble for modifications.

I only shoot in JPEG for now. I never had the need to do RAW. What better converts camera raw data to JPEG than your own camera. It is just my thought.

Hope this helps.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on September 10, 2010 at 5:00am

"What better converts camera raw data to JPEG than your own camera."

Almost everything does a better conversion.

My wife took this with her Canon G11. It was processed the way the camera itself would (default settings used for conversion):

By processing the raw data yourself, you can get this:

All that data is in the RAW file and the camera just throws it away when it makes a JPEG.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next ›
• Page