Opening a jpeg to edit eventually ruins it?

[vikkijac]

I read in a magazine, that by the time you've opened a jpeg image 12 times to make edits, it will be totally unusable. That information is lost every time the image is opened. Is this true??? If so, should I be shooting in all RAW and saving those just in case I want to edit later? I'm also a bit concerned about space to store all those images. I do a lot of landscapes/macro and that's going to be an issue. (I already put many on an external drive)


Searched forum for info on this and couldn't find any.
Thanks for any input,
Vikki

[jdepould]

Well, yes and no. Photoshop is smart enough not to recompress parts of the file that haven't changed, so simply opening and closing the file isn't going to ruin it.

Heavy editing in jpg generally isn't a good idea though, mostly because of the compression. If you want to shoot jpg, but need to make a lot of changes (beyond simple toning and cropping), it's best to save to a lossless format first (tif or psd), do your editing, save the edit file (preferably with layers), then do another save as jpeg to send it to the Web. Or just suck it up, buy a terabyte external drive, and shoot raw (I have 3.5TB on my desk).

[OsmosisStudios]

It's also important to note that it's not OPENING the file that's an issue, it's SAVING. If you don't save, youre not affecting the file.

[dcclark]

And it's not even saving -- it's saving, closing, opening, editing, then saving, closing, reopening, reediting, etc. -- over and over, many times. If you edit the same jpeg a few times (say, 4 or 5) then you won't notice any difference.

Also, if you edit a jpeg, save it, edit it more (while keeping the file open), save again, etc., then you won't notice a quality loss either -- because photoshop keeps the file, uncompressed, and saves it as a "fresh" jpeg each time around. It's only when you've saved, closed, reopened, and edited again, that you risk losing quality.

I personally save my edited images as Gimp XCF files, so that they're losslessly stored.

[teaking]

If you use lightroom then the same non destructive work flow that applies to RAW also applies to JPEG only when you export the file are changes actualy made to the file created.

So in lightroom you can open and make as many changes as you like. In other editing software as the other posters mentioned save as TIFF before Post processing.

[vikkijac]

I'm using iphoto for organizing, and photoshop for editing. I've saved SOME .psd files in the past, (client photos, etc.) but maybe I'll make more of a habit of it. I'm not normally doing really heavy editing, but sometimes I like to mess around when I find a new texture or technique I want to try. I'm usually using a copy of the original when I do that though, not an already edited and saved one.
Thanks for all your input! This site RULES!