photoshop question

[JbVenable]

I was wondering if when i get a cd from walgreens of pics if photoshop is as good with them as it is straight from a camera?? Maybe a dumb question? i have several developed pics I was wondering how they could look with some touch ups. Your help is appreciated...

[DigiSLR]

I remember that there are 2 kinds of photo CDs that stores will give you. If it's the one with the tiny photos that are generally an index of your prints, the files on the CD are compressed so much and low quality you won't be able to do much to them. If however, the files are full size high quality JPGs, you can edit them, although I personally don't like to edit JPGs.

[JbVenable]

Is it more difficult to work with jpegs?

[JamesB]

no its not more difficult to work with jpegs.

but i guess it depends on how you are getting the CD from Walgreen's.

did you take your camera to Walgreen's to have them make a CD for you?

sometimes the photo CD's they give you are low res files. you can edit them but its much better to have the files straight from the camera.

jpegs (.jpg) are all I mess with. some cameras will create file sin RAW or TIFF format which technically is a much better file format because of the color depth and bit depth, but most people (like me) really dont care about those file formats because there is a conversion process you have to go through and you can save a lot of time by just using jpg and always make sure you retain an un-edited version of the original jpg file.

also if you are going to sell your prints or make prints larger than 16x20 you should shoot in RAW or TIFF format to ensure you are working with the most amount of data you can. I dont do either so RAW is not for me.

James

[DigiSLR]

There is no problem editing JPGs except for the fact that JPGs use a form of compression that causes data to be lost every time you modify and save a file. If you modify once and done, fine, but every time you reopen modify and save a JPG, you are slowly degrading the file due to the compression of the JPG format. TIFF and I think PSD (as well as RAW and DNG) are lossless and can be opened, modified, and saved, over and over and over again with no degradation.

[JbVenable]

OK thanks everyone this has been very informative. I shoot film and walgreens puts it on a cd. So this answers everything.

[JamesB]

ok, that explains your situation a lot more.

you can take your negatives to have scanned to get higher resolution "digita" files of the photos made. this would be a LOT better than what walgreens could do.

However I will have to let the film guys here on the forum give their input on this since I have no experience with film.

James