Convert JPG to other formats

[seaodyssey]

Hello one and all.
I was thinking is it worth saving nostalgic jpg files to Tiff, PNG or PSD in order to save on the extra artifacts when ever a jpg file is open and closed.

I have some files of my daughters from 1996 and I would like to ensure that they stay the best quality as possible.

Any thoughts on this?

Pete

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

in order to save on the extra artifacts when ever a jpg file is open and closed.

So far as I'm aware compression is not applied if you close an unchanged JPG file. Applications would only need to write back the file if you make a change. Of course there may be applications that do rewrite unchanged files so you'd need to check what you use.

The most common uncompressed image format is TIFF but it does use a lot of space,

 

[Major Eazy]

Hello one and all.
I was thinking is it worth saving nostalgic jpg files to Tiff, PNG or PSD in order to save on the extra artifacts when ever a jpg file is open and closed.

I have some files of my daughters from 1996 and I would like to ensure that they stay the best quality as possible.

Any thoughts on this?

Pete

JPEG will be fine if you just open for viewing then close it. The problem with JPEG losing quality only applies if you keep opening the same JPEG, make some changes, save it, and repeat many times. That's why it's better to use TIFF or PSD for on-going work in progress, once the work is completed, save it for the last time, but also export as JPEG for viewing only.

If you're worried, you can always make copies of the old JPEG files. You just keep the old JPEG files in a folder you could name as "Archives" or whatever you like. Just move the copies to another folder where you can keep opening for viewing only.

It is saving the same JPEG over and over again and again that is what makes them lose their quality, not opening for viewing only and closing without saving.

 

[droj]

The problem with JPEG losing quality only applies if you keep opening the same JPEG, make some changes, save it, and repeat many times.

If you open it, work on it (curves, levels, or whatever), and then save it with those changes even just the once, it'll be degraded. Try it, and look at the gaps and spikes in the histogram afterwards. The more operations, the worse the degradation. It is not a resilient format! But left unaltered, it won't degrade by being inspected, and it'll take up less space than a tiff.

 

[Tringa]

Hello one and all.
I was thinking is it worth saving nostalgic jpg files to Tiff, PNG or PSD in order to save on the extra artifacts when ever a jpg file is open and closed.

I have some files of my daughters from 1996 and I would like to ensure that they stay the best quality as possible.

Any thoughts on this?

Pete

As said above just opening a .jpeg file to look at it and then closing it doesn't affect it. If the old files are already OK(ie you don't want to do any editing on them) then storing as a .jpeg will be fine.
While opening, editing and saving will degrade them does it matter if, at the way you are going to view them, this is not visible to the eye? You could open, edit and save another .jpeg say, 20 times(which is probably more times than times than you would edit a file), and see if you can spot any differences.

Dave

 

[seaodyssey]

JPEG will be fine if you just open for viewing then close it. The problem with JPEG losing quality only applies if you keep opening the same JPEG, make some changes, save it, and repeat many times. That's why it's better to use TIFF or PSD for on-going work in progress, once the work is completed, save it for the last time, but also export as JPEG for viewing only.

If you're worried, you can always make copies of the old JPEG files. You just keep the old JPEG files in a folder you could name as "Archives" or whatever you like. Just move the copies to another folder where you can keep opening for viewing only.

It is saving the same JPEG over and over again and again that is what makes them lose their quality, not opening for viewing only and closing without saving.

As said above just opening a .jpeg file to look at it and then closing it doesn't affect it. If the old files are already OK(ie you don't want to do any editing on them) then storing as a .jpeg will be fine.
While opening, editing and saving will degrade them does it matter if, at the way you are going to view them, this is not visible to the eye? You could open, edit and save another .jpeg say, 20 times(which is probably more times than times than you would edit a file), and see if you can spot any differences.

Dave

Guess I can make them read-only to safe guard them.
I asked as I'm looking at using on1-raw and I have cataloged some files and it populated the database with Keywords from some software in the past. Looking at the photos the keywords have been saved in the jpg files.

Pete

 

[Major Eazy]

As said above just opening a .jpeg file to look at it and then closing it doesn't affect it. If the old files are already OK(ie you don't want to do any editing on them) then storing as a .jpeg will be fine.
While opening, editing and saving will degrade them does it matter if, at the way you are going to view them, this is not visible to the eye? You could open, edit and save another .jpeg say, 20 times(which is probably more times than times than you would edit a file), and see if you can spot any differences.

Dave

I agree with you.

Open it, do very little light work on it, like adjusting the brightness a very little, and save it just once with highest quality setting, will according to a computer show some degradation, but looks fine to a person.

Although in the old days, with older software, like CorelPhotoPaint or PaintShopPro, saving the file, then re-open it and save it again, repeat as many times, will show it very noticeable to a person. Will ends up looking bit blocky if the file had been compressed too many times.

It does not seems to be the case with modern software like the current Photoshop. I've tried it, adjust brightness, save, close, open same file, adjust something else, save, close, open, and so, on, even turning it upside down, save it, close it, open it, and turn it back the right way up. Like about 10 to 20 times on the lowest quality setting, it may show some degradation to people with the best 20/20 eyesight, but still looks okay enough to me.

 

[Major Eazy]

Guess I can make them read-only to safe guard them.
I asked as I'm looking at using on1-raw and I have cataloged some files and it populated the database with Keywords from some software in the past. Looking at the photos the keywords have been saved in the jpg files.

Pete

Yes, you could make them read-only, after all if you were to do any editing, the software would make you save it as another file. So your original read-only files will be staying the same for viewing only, while you have a copy saved with a different filename for posting online, printing out, use as background on the monitor, whatever.

 

[Retune]

Guess I can make them read-only to safe guard them.
I asked as I'm looking at using on1-raw and I have cataloged some files and it populated the database with Keywords from some software in the past. Looking at the photos the keywords have been saved in the jpg files.

Pete

Changing the metadata doesn't necessarily mean the image has been recompressed (in fact it's simpler to leave the image alone with this sort of operation - the metadata is in a separate section of the file). Some software can even carry out limited image manipulations like rotation and cropping without recompression (but don't assume this is the case).