Richard D Posted January 23, 2009 Share #1 Posted January 23, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) Hi, I'm still a newbie at digital and RAW, but have been making pretty good progress with my D-Lux4 shooting mostly in 'RAW plus fine JPEG and processing the RWLs in C1. My question is this: If on occasion I shoot 'fine' JPEG only, may I convert them later to a TIFF so that I don't have any further loss of information if I want to manipulate them again down the road? Hope this makes sense, and thanks...:-) Rich. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 23, 2009 Posted January 23, 2009 Hi Richard D, Take a look here JPEG to TIF??. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Shootist Posted January 23, 2009 Share #2 Posted January 23, 2009 Yes you can but since it was already a JPEG you're already working with a compressed file as apposed to starting with a RAW file. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard D Posted January 23, 2009 Author Share #3 Posted January 23, 2009 Thanks Shootist. I understand that the JPEG is already a compressed file. I just want to be certain that if I convert it to a TIFF at some point, there will be no 'further' loss to it. I think I understand your response as a 'yes, no further loss.' Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shootist Posted January 23, 2009 Share #4 Posted January 23, 2009 Thanks Shootist. I understand that the JPEG is already a compressed file. I just want to be certain that if I convert it to a TIFF at some point, there will be no 'further' loss to it. I think I understand your response as a 'yes, no further loss.' Well anytime you edit a image you lose/change something in the image. But yes not as much as if you did the same edits to a JPEG and then saved it as a JPEG. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckcars Posted January 23, 2009 Share #5 Posted January 23, 2009 Why not save as tiff? If you do not change the size I doubt if your eye could tell any difference. The camera output of jpg is essentially the same as processing of RAW and saving as jpg. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shootist Posted January 23, 2009 Share #6 Posted January 23, 2009 Why not save as tiff? If you do not change the size I doubt if your eye could tell any difference. The camera output of jpg is essentially the same as processing of RAW and saving as jpg. Not really. Shooting RAW you can make changes to the file without losing anything then export/save as a TIFF and you make the decisions on how the image looks. When shooting just JPEG you are letting the camera make the decisions for you. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted January 23, 2009 Share #7 Posted January 23, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) If you save it as a Tiff at least you can make adjustments to that and save the files without there being a further deterioration in image quality. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard D Posted January 24, 2009 Author Share #8 Posted January 24, 2009 Understood. Thanks for the help, everyone. Rich. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted January 24, 2009 Share #9 Posted January 24, 2009 Rich-- Keep in mind also that the Capture One DNG requires a lot more post-processing than the camera's JPG or the Capture One TIFF. That is, both the D-Lux 4's JPG engine and Capture One's TIFF converter apply all the Leica-specified corrections to chromatic aberration and distortion, but the Capture One DNG converter does not, and leaves a DNG with a lot of CA and quite noticeable distortion. You might want to download the free Adobe DNG converter to produce an additional, better-corrected DNG. The Adobe conversion corrects most of the CA and all but 3% (per LFI) of the distortion. The Adobe DNG is also currently much larger than the Capture One DNG, since it is written as a linear, de-mosaicked file. To your specific question: As others said, you throw away more information each time you save as JPG. If you've got a JPG now, open it and save as TIFF, you'll lose nothing more than has already been lost. Although the D-Lux 4 makes very good JPGs, my practice is to shoot only RAW and then save the RWL and a DNG copy, sometimes both a Capture One DNG and an Adobe DNG because of their differences. I'd rather keep as much information as I can as long as I can. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnastovall Posted January 24, 2009 Share #10 Posted January 24, 2009 Hi,I'm still a newbie at digital and RAW, but have been making pretty good progress with my D-Lux4 shooting mostly in 'RAW plus fine JPEG and processing the RWLs in C1. My question is this: If on occasion I shoot 'fine' JPEG only, may I convert them later to a TIFF so that I don't have any further loss of information if I want to manipulate them again down the road? Hope this makes sense, and thanks...:-) Rich. As soon as your created a JPEG, you lost information. Just work with your raw files and only convert to JPEG at the very end. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Photon42 Posted January 24, 2009 Share #11 Posted January 24, 2009 Richard, Thanks Shootist. I understand that the JPEG is already a compressed file. I just want to be certain that if I convert it to a TIFF at some point, there will be no 'further' loss to it. I think I understand your response as a 'yes, no further loss.' let me add my two cents to it. The TIFF format actually is an image container format (similar to the Digital Negative DNG). How image(s) are actually stored within that file, totally depends on the strategy the writing application uses. You'll get an idea of that, once you look at the parameters Photoshop is asking you. LZW compression for example is a lossless compression. Not all readers understand all variants of image representation. The normal ones (uncompressed, LZW, ...) shouldn't ever create a real problem. To cut it short: TIFF can be lossless, if the image is written in a lossless fashion. As most applications do so by default, it's a save assumption. I think your idea of converting the camera's JPEG into a TIFF makes sense, if you use destructive editing more than once. That is, you change the actual pixels in your original file. My recommendation is to use Lightroom or Aperture as non-destructive editing to the JPEGs, maybe compressed for 80% quality. Rgds Ivo Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard D Posted January 24, 2009 Author Share #12 Posted January 24, 2009 Rich--Keep in mind also that the Capture One DNG requires a lot more post-processing than the camera's JPG or the Capture One TIFF. That is, both the D-Lux 4's JPG engine and Capture One's TIFF converter apply all the Leica-specified corrections to chromatic aberration and distortion, but the Capture One DNG converter does not, and leaves a DNG with a lot of CA and quite noticeable distortion. You might want to download the free Adobe DNG converter to produce an additional, better-corrected DNG. The Adobe conversion corrects most of the CA and all but 3% (per LFI) of the distortion. The Adobe DNG is also currently much larger than the Capture One DNG, since it is written as a linear, de-mosaicked file. To your specific question: As others said, you throw away more information each time you save as JPG. If you've got a JPG now, open it and save as TIFF, you'll lose nothing more than has already been lost. Although the D-Lux 4 makes very good JPGs, my practice is to shoot only RAW and then save the RWL and a DNG copy, sometimes both a Capture One DNG and an Adobe DNG because of their differences. I'd rather keep as much information as I can as long as I can. Howard, I hated to quote so much of your text, but there is so much good info there. I downloaded the Adobe DNG converter about a month ago, and noted all its shortcomings that you have mentioned. But I never noticed the DNG preference in C1, if you can believe. Just as well, because it would have really frustrated me. As always, thanks for the clear, concise advice. Rich Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard D Posted January 24, 2009 Author Share #13 Posted January 24, 2009 Richard, SNIP_ To cut it short: TIFF can be lossless, if the image is written in a lossless fashion. As most applications do so by default, it's a save assumption. I think your idea of converting the camera's JPEG into a TIFF makes sense, if you use destructive editing more than once. That is, you change the actual pixels in your original file. My recommendation is to use Lightroom or Aperture as non-destructive editing to the JPEGs, maybe compressed for 80% quality. Rgds Ivo Thanks Ivo, What prompted my original question is that I have a lot of JPEGS from before I started shooting raw. And one of my habits is that since learning to do a little post processing, I've been playing with those images a little too often. I want no further destruction of them, as a few are important to me. Your input is appreciated, but I don't understand your last sentence- why compress to 80% quality rather than 100%? Also, I've been doing all my pp with CaptureOne and a Mac program called Graphic Converter. GC has a lot of editing tools and I have found it both useful and fun- do I really want/need to invest in PS or LR??? Rich. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard D Posted January 24, 2009 Author Share #14 Posted January 24, 2009 As soon as your created a JPEG, you lost information. Just work with your raw files and only convert to JPEG at the very end. That's good advice of course, and I'll try to stick to it. What prompted my original question is that I have many older JPEGs with no RAW backup. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard D Posted January 24, 2009 Author Share #15 Posted January 24, 2009 As soon as your created a JPEG, you lost information. Just work with your raw files and only convert to JPEG at the very end. That's good advice of course, and I'll try to stick to it. What prompted my original question is that I have many older JPEGs with no RAW backup. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Photon42 Posted January 24, 2009 Share #16 Posted January 24, 2009 [...] why compress to 80% quality rather than 100%? Also, I've been doing all my pp with CaptureOne and a Mac program called Graphic Converter. [...] The compression 80% qual or 10 of 12 in Photoshop is just a proposal to get quite a bit of compression w/o losing really information (to my eye). As to the investment in another program: I have a Mac as well and know GC from the dark age of Mac OS 7. No problem with that, it's a great image format transformer. The main point here of using LR or Aperture over - say GC - is, that especially LR won't touch the JPEG (read: orginal) file when applying corrections. You can e.g. adjust white balance and contrast and decide three month later to undo it and do some other tweaking. That even extends to spot removal. So no need to TIFFify the images. For me, non-destructive editing clearly is the future and very much light a negative and different prints. Just easier and even more flexibile. Both Aperture and LR can be tried for free during 30 days, IIRC. Regards Ivo Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted January 24, 2009 Share #17 Posted January 24, 2009 ... So no need to TIFFify the images. ... Ivo-- Sounds TIFFilating, to say the least! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard D Posted January 25, 2009 Author Share #18 Posted January 25, 2009 As to the investment in another program: I have a Mac as well and know GC from the dark age of Mac OS 7. No problem with that, it's a great image format transformer. The main point here of using LR or Aperture over - say GC - is, that especially LR won't touch the JPEG (read: orginal) file when applying corrections. You can e.g. adjust white balance and contrast and decide three month later to undo it and do some other tweaking. That even extends to spot removal. So no need to TIFFify the images. For me, non-destructive editing clearly is the future and very much light a negative and different prints. Just easier and even more flexibile. Both Aperture and LR can be tried for free during 30 days, IIRC. Regards Ivo Thanks Ivo, Do LR or Aperture have profiles yet for the DL4? If not, what would I do, use C1 first? As an aside, I noticed on the news that today is the 25th anniversary of the Mac (January 24, 1984). Rich. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted January 25, 2009 Share #19 Posted January 25, 2009 Rich-- Lightroom reads D-Lux 4 files fine, though I don't believe that a D-Lux 4 profile is available. I'm not sure about Aperture. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard D Posted January 25, 2009 Author Share #20 Posted January 25, 2009 When I have a little more time, I think I'll give LR a try- thanks Howard. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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