Working with digital images

[stocklance]

Greetings,

I've started a website for my photography. I hope to sell some of my work on line. The problem is that I'm new to digital darkroom. I'm using Photoshop CS 2. I've come across tutorials that encourage the convertion of jpg to Tiff for editing and then saving back to jpg for the web.

I've done as instructed but the final jpg file is huge. Even after cropping I'm ending up with files that are 2-3 MB. This even after I save for the web.

I'm I missing something in the process?

Any help or tutorials are welcome.

Regards,

Fernando

[ShutterbugGail]

I've done as instructed but the final jpg file is huge. Even after cropping I'm ending up with files that are 2-3 MB. This even after I save for the web.

I'm I missing something in the process?

HI there and welcome to the Q&A Board.

If you're not doing so, you should resize your images befor you use the Save for the Web command. I usually resize my images about 800 x 600 pixels/600 x 800 pixels (or slightly less) for web presentation. Don't forget to tweak the Save for Web settings to get a good balance between image quality and compression level. We have a tutorial about it here:

http://www.digicamhelp.com/learn/image-editing/image-resizing.htm

We also have a great article on resizing images for web presentation. I think you will find this useful too.

http://www.digicamhelp.com/learn/image-editing/image-resizing-for-web.htm

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask for additional help.

Congratulations on your photography website. When it's ready, and if you care to do so, post a link so we can take a peek at your photos.

[Mike54]

Hi Fernando and welcome.

Since the original jpeg is as good a quality as you're going to get I personally question the usefulness of converting to tiff to work on the file. Converting certainly isn't going to make it better and AFAIK there won't be any adjustments you can do to the tiff that can't be done to the jpeg. The one thing it will do is increase the file size which is what you seem to be having a problem with. Try doing the conversion the way you're doing it now, jpeg to tiff and back (save the result) and then try post processing the jpeg without conversion. Be sure to save the result as a different file so as not to lose the original quality and make a comparison. Let us know what you find.

[pip22]

Hi Mike 54. It's true converting a jpeg to tiff won't improve the image quality, as you rightly say. But if you start editing a jpeg, do a bit of editing on it, then click on 'save' without thinking, you further degrade the image (as I'm sure you already know).  So even if you are working on a copy (as indeed you should be), you still have to start again from scratch with another copy when you realise what you just did. With a tiff file, however, this won't happen, so if nothing else it's a useful safety net don't you think?

[ShutterbugGail]

Hi pip2 and welcome to the Q&A Board,

Thanks for great tips you've shared at the Q&A baord! They are much appreciated.

I always work from copies of originals, or if opening an original, I make sure to add at least one layer (I use Photoshop). As soon as you add a layer to the opened file, you are no longer working on the original.

I use adjustment layers for things such as levels and color correction; I duplicate the "original" background layer and sharpen only the duplicate, etc.  In other words, as I work I never touch the background layer so it remains unedited except if for possible resizing. When done,  can save as a .psd (photoshop) file as well as "Save as" to a jpeg or other format.

In other words, when I'm finished editing I have three files:

- the untouched original
- the Photoshop .psd file
- the edited image

For those not familiar with layers, here's some very basic information:

Layers 101:

http://www.digicamhelp.com/learn/image-editing/layers.htm

Creating shallow depth of field using layers (gives an idea of how layers are used)

http://www.digicamhelp.com/how-to-create-depth-of-field-using-layers/shallow-dof-with-layers.htm