barbara_brundage

Jim, I see two problems with trying to keep your original as a layer of your edited photo.

First of all, it won't be protected from any cropping you do and that's permanent. There's no way to get back the pixels you slice off if later you want a different crop for another use.

The other thing is that if your original is there while you are working and you have some kind of crash, you could lose it, too. Paranoid people like me want a back-up that's not living on the main disk, just in case.

EDIT Oops, I realize the jpg would be unaffected by the crop, but not by a crash, so I'd still suggest keeping it safely elsewhere.

jim_hess

Barbara,

I can see that we both work under different philosophies, and I don't think either one of us is completely correct in our thinking. As soon as I have created a new layer, or any other editing as far as that goes, I save the file as a PSD do***ent. The original JPEG image was only accessed long enough to load it into memory. It now remains untouched on the hard drive. If a crash occurs before I save the do***ent that has been changed, all I have lost are the edits that I have done. The original JPEG is still sitting, unaltered, on my hard drive. The only time that JPEG, the actual file, is going to get modified is if I save my work back to the hard drive with the same name as the original JPEG. So, personally, I'm comfortable with my methodology. However, if you feel more comfortable working the other way, there really isn't anything wrong with that either. I think, based on some of your messages that I have read, that other then this one issue, our workflow is probably basically the same.

Jim

pete_d

Reflecting back on the jpg discussion a few months ago there were a few
lingering questions that can only be answered in the future. One was that
no one really knows what happens to jpg images after a long period of time,
even unaltered files. (25 years?) The other point as I recall is that it
was thought that since Tiff files were universal they may be in use years
from now or at least a better chance of being able to open them.

So if you work on pictures that your grandchildrens kids might want to see
it may be better to use Tiff providing you have the HD space.

Pete

chuck_snyder

Pete, some fascinating thoughts. I don't think an image will deteriorate
based on file type (they're all just 1's and 0's in different
configurations) but they surely will based on storage medium - hence the
caution expressed in the forum about using CD-RW or low-quality CD-R's.
With respect to the JPEG format becoming obsolete, that's a very real
possibility; it certainly makes you hope that programs like IrfanView (file
viewer utility with very broad range of accepted formats) continue to exist.
The thought of having to convert thousands of images from one format to
another and one storage medium to another is daunting to say the least!

Chuck

chuck_snyder

p.s. My storage is a bit of a mixed bag (a kind description). I have RAW
images, with the good ones converted to TIFF. I have original JPEG's where
I didn't use RAW. Any image that has been edited is most likely to be in
TIFF, although some made their way into PSD because that was the default
that Elements proposed when doing a Save As. In a few cases where I've
edited a JPEG without using layers, I've saved back as a JPEG with a
modified name. I guess the only common denominator for me is that I've kept
all the camera originals 'as-is' (after my first few batches that I edited
to death without layers and saved back as JPEG's over the originals - live and learn....)

pete_d

Chuck,

I don't think they will deteriorate based on file type but whatever we use
25 and more years from now to open them (they may not even be called
computers) probably will not use what we now refer to as compression and the
file may not open properly because of that compression.

The possibilities are as endless as your imagination but the point is that
the Tiff has a greater chance of survival :-)

Pete

grant_dixon

Pete

I suspect you are talking about media storage and universality of the jpg
program. Electro magnetic storage does have a "drift" problem and it is
only a few years. Anyone who has tried to archive on floppies has found out
that in a few years the data has "grown" errors. The magnetic message is
drifting. The same would probably be true of hard disks if they were left
sitting for a long time. On the other hand a CD is not magnetic so in
theory there should be no drift. The life expectancy of a CD is said to be
50 years and after that I am not sure what will happen. I am not even sure
the technology will last that long. In the last 50 years we have gone from
punch cards to punch tape, magnetic tape, 8", 5 1/4, 3 1/2 floppies and
now CDs so who knows what the future may bring. There are precious few
punch card readers left and I suspect we may have problems finding CD
readers 50 years form now.

In the future it is true that the universality of jpg format may only be a
thing of the past. Even today they are developing great compression
algorithms based on fractals. As medium changes we may simple have update
to our compression methods as we transfer from CD to who knows what. If you
feel that CDs will still be the thing 50 years from now and Jpg may not
simply add a viewer to your CD. In the end I believe that to maintain a 50
year achievability target we will have to do some work, unlike grannies
prints that can be stored under the bed in a shoe box, although granny
seldom got archive quality prints from the local drug store.

Grant

Same problem here. Who is to say if Irfan View will run on the OS
in 25 years. It seems the best we can do is make new archival
copies as the media, software and hardware changes.

--
Have A Nice Day,
jwh :-)
My Pictures
http://www.pbase.com/myeyesview

chuck_snyder

Pete, point well taken. I guess if we're still around as these changes
begin to take place, we can migrate our images. The problem will be 25
years from now, when our grandchildren start rummaging through our stuff and
find the old CD's and decide they want to see what Grandpa was up to in the
'early years'...:-)

chuck_snyder

Grant: 'Add a viewer to your CD' sounds like a great suggestion; sort of
like a decoder ring! I think I'll try adding a copy of IrfanView to each of
my CD's. Thanks!