JPEG in PP

[PepperT]

Can you do any PP on Jpeg photos? A friend has asked me if anything can be done with some of his photos and they're all Jpeg. He's ordered both PSE 11 and Lightroom 4 along with a new camera he got for Christmas that will allow him to shoot in RAW.

[tclune]

Yes, you can PP JPEGs. You have less "head room" in the JPEG than you would in a raw image, but you can process it within those limitations like you would any other image.

[Manfred M]

I do this all the time, especially if I am looking at posting to the internet. I just make sure that my in-camera settings are okay and that I do not have to do anything in PP that will cause banding in the image. Most of these shots get a bit of cropping and other minor adjustments. I generally shoot jpg + RAW and have a fallback if I've blown the shot.

[Geoff F]

The main problem is that you can't undo any previous edits. So your starting point will be where he left off.

That might or might not be an issue, depending on what has previously been done with them.

But if they are straight from the camera there is no problem. You can't do quite as much as you can with Raw shots, as Tom mentioned, but a lot of people just shoot in Jpeg.

[Colin Southern]

The main problem is that you can't undo any previous edits. So your starting point will be where he left off.

On that note, folks often say to me "can you print this for me ... I've done a bit of work on it" ... and I find it's always better if I can grab the original (if available) and re-do any editing from scratch.

[jcuknz]

I never shoot raw and do a huge amount of post processing, and have done for years now. Apart from sharpening if you use adjustment layers and keep the layered files you can go back and change anything you like, or if you are sensible and keep the original camera file in a separate 'archive' folder you can start from scratch*. But all my edits are saved in a lossless system which holds the separate layers. If for instance you want to make a merged file for some reason, a compressed jpg for web use perhaps, you can immediately afterwards go back and undo the merge and save the file with layers intact.
Paint Shop Pro users would use pspimage while Adobe I believe would use psd.

*I wish I had adopted this business of copying the camera file to the archive folder and then a second copy to my working folders from the start ... but back then storage was very expensive and kept just small jpg files in my ignorance

So it is a load of old cobblers to say you cannot change jpgs .. it just depends on how you work
To split hairs one can say that while the camera shot a jpg file the moment you open it in your editor it has become a lossless or full sized file ... as big as it can be after one threw away say 75% of the information in the camera ... but that 75% loss is hardly noticeable in practice. That is working with the highest form of compression [lowest compression] that most cameras come with

[William W]

Assuming that Focus and Exposure (shooting elements) are acceptable.

Picking up on a technical note:

Even if they are JPEGS SOOC (straight out of the camera) – that does not mean that there will be no ‘problems’ attributable to the Photographer’s meddling. The camera must apply some PROCESSING to make the JPEG file.

The JPEG ‘straight out of the camera’ is dependent upon the JPEG parameters set in the camera automatically, or set by the Photographer via a menu selection.

My very worst example was when I was asked how to get the colour pictures from an EOS 30D’s JPEG files – which were shot using the selection as ‘monochrome’ in the JPEG Picture Styles selection menu.

WW

[revi]

(...)

To split hairs one can say that while the camera shot a jpg file the moment you open it in your editor it has become a lossless or full sized file ... as big as it can be after one threw away say 75% of the information in the camera ... but that 75% loss is hardly noticeable in practice.

Now that we are splitting hairs, the image size you get to edit is independent of the JPEG quality settings (e.g. 75%) (but can be reduced by a 'size' setting). If you use the full sized jpeg, the image will be the same size (in pixels) as a RAW file.

That is working with the highest form of compression [lowest compression] that most cameras come with

I'd rephrase this as:
"That is working with the highest quality setting [lowest compression] that the camera allows"

[SteveF]

I shoot jpegs all the time and I have PS CS2. As mentioned, there are adjustment layers which if used without flattening the layers do not destroy the file and the final flattening of the layers does less damage than individual edits without the adjustment layers.

There's always the option of 'save as' to .tiff from jpegs if heavy manipulation is envisaged. Haven't done a lot of manipulation for some years now so I'm a bit rusty I'm afraid!