07-01-2007, 07:06 AM

Hi all,
so I have a query about peoples filing habits. Say, you use iPhoto to capture all your pics off a camera. They are all initially jpeg/jpg files. But I usually want to work on them in Photoshop, and I immediately save them as psd files so I'm not losing any quality as I save. So, I end up with an original jpeg and a new improved psd file. I really don't like throwing away the orig pic, but then things get messy. I don't want both pics in iPhoto so, do i store the jpegs some place else, removing them form iPhoto and adding the final psd file? Seems like a big hassle. I only really want the orig file as a backup/source. What do you guys do in this situation? Can you suggest a better working method? I'm not talking about serious photography here, just snaps.
Thanks in advance...

07-01-2007, 08:32 AM

If you save a Jpeg as a PSD, you're not gaining any quality. Similarly, if you save that edited picture back as a JPEG with full quality settings, you won't lose any quality. PSD only stores additional info like layers and work history and filter settings and views etc.

So I'm not sure you even should be keeping PSDs, as they take up a multiple of the space, and I doubt you will feel a quality difference at all.

07-01-2007, 04:53 PM

Hmm, i was under the impression that jpeg was a "lossy" format, so i would work in psd so that as i saved, i didn't corrupt the file. Are you saying that full quality jpeg won't "lose" any data? Anyway, what to do with the two files? That's my main problem. I still want to keep the original and the finished one.

07-01-2007, 08:05 PM

It's true that you don't gain any photo quality by converting from JPEG to PSD (because the JPEG distortion is embedded in the originally loaded data). But Simbad54 is right - even saving a full quality JPEG throws away some small amount of data, each and every time you do it. So if you load a JPEG and then immediately save it again as even a full quality JPEG, your 2nd save will be of marginally lower quality than the original JPEG. And if you edit, save, edit, save, etc., it will get substantially worse of over (generational loss). So I agree with you that it's a good idea to save your edited files in a lossless format (such as PSD or PNG) if you expect to ever need them again for further editing.

Unfortunately I don't know how to answer your original question. Personally I only use iPhoto to manage my original camera images. Once I load them into Photoshop and start saving them as PSD (or whatever), I save them to their own folders and leave iPhoto out of it. But there's probably a better way to work with such edited files in iPhoto, but I've not spent enough time in iPhoto to learn what that might be.

07-02-2007, 03:25 PM

You can set iPhoto to use Photoshop as the editor of choice, and when you click on "edit" in iPhoto, PS will open. The changed photo will be saved back to its original place in iPhoto.

07-02-2007, 03:54 PM

That sounds good, skybolt. I think I'll get this licked, I just need to do a bit of fiddling around.