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When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs...

DaveP142 DaveP142

Is from: Dudley, UK
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DaveP142 Silver Member Nikonian since 19th Jul 2016
Thu 23-Sep-21 01:07 PM
something I accomplished recently. I'm blaming a fumble while adjusting ISO with the camera to my eye, but whatever the reason, when a jpeg is all you have, what can you do to maximise your PP options?
Apart from the possibility of artefacts some LR tools seem to be relatively ineffective with jpegs. No great surprise there, after all, a lot of data has been discarded, but would exporting the file as, say, a TIFF make it easier to manipulate what is left?

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elec164 elec164

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#1. "RE: When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs" | In response to Reply # 0

elec164 Silver Member Ribbon awarded because of his contribution to the community in addition to his expertise  Donor Ribbon awarded for the generous contribution to the 2020 campaign Donor Ribbon awarded for the very generous contribution to the 2024 campaign Nikonian since 15th Jan 2009
Thu 23-Sep-21 06:40 PM
>exporting the file as, say, a TIFF make it easier to
>manipulate what is left?

When I am faced with editing a JPEG I bring it into Affinity Photo and change it to 16-bit. While that doesn't bring back what was lost, it does help mitigate quantization errors and staves off posterization a bit as long as you don't make any heavy duty edits.

Pete


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DaveP142 DaveP142

Is from: Dudley, UK
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#2. "RE: When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs" | In response to Reply # 1

DaveP142 Silver Member Nikonian since 19th Jul 2016
Fri 24-Sep-21 09:23 AM
Thanks for that suggestion - though I can't help feeling that buying a new software suite would be an expensive way to process an accidental jpeg - especially one of mine!
I see that I can export a jpeg from LR as a 16 bit TIFF or PSD and then open the new file in LR or PS. Would that be roughly comparable?

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ajdooley ajdooley

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#3. "RE: When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs" | In response to Reply # 0

ajdooley Moderator Awarded for his frequent encouraging comments, sharing his knowledge in the Nikonians spirit. Ribbon awarded for his generous support to the Fundraising Campaign 2015 Ribbon awarded for his generous support to the Fundraising Campaign 2017 Ribbon awarded for his generous support to the 2017 fundraising campaign Awarded for his in-depth knowledge and high level of skill in several areas, especially photojo Ribbon awarded for his repeated generous contributions to the 2019 Fundraising campaign Donor Ribbon awarded for the contribution to the 2020 campaign Nikonian since 25th May 2006
Fri 24-Sep-21 09:45 AM
The fundamental issue Dave, is that saving only a jpeg in the camera meas that it has already discarded a substantial amount of data and interpreted much of the image for you. Sadly, tt's kind of like buying 10 potatoes at the market, having a hole in the bag and getting home with only 5. I save everything in both NEFS and small jpegs. The only reason I save the jpegs is if my news jab requires me to send a quick image remotely. Other than that, I use Photoshop for my initial post processing and several others for minor adjustments. I know it's frustrating when these cameras have so many buttons and occasionally make decisions for us! But this is occasionally how we "go to school."

Alan
Waterloo, IL, USA
www.proimagingmidamerica.com


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mklass mklass

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#4. "RE: When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs" | In response to Reply # 0

mklass Platinum Member As a semi-professional involved in all manner of photographic genres including portraiture, ... Donor Ribbon awarded for his generous support to the Fundraising Campaign 2014 Ribbon awarded for his most generous donation in 2017 Ribbon awarded for his very generous support to the 2017 fundraising campaign Donor Ribbon awarded for the most generous contribution to the 2015 campaign Donor Ribbon awarded for the extraordinary generous contribution to the 2016 campaign Donor Ribbon awarded for the most generous contribution to the 2016 campaign Nikonian since 08th Dec 2006
Fri 24-Sep-21 10:10 AM
David,

Topaz JPEG to RAW AI is a product specifically designed to to what you want

This may not be worth the price to you, but at least you can use the free trial to evaluate it.

https://topazlabs.com/jpeg-to-raw-ai/

Mick
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elec164 elec164

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#5. "RE: When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs" | In response to Reply # 2

elec164 Silver Member Ribbon awarded because of his contribution to the community in addition to his expertise  Donor Ribbon awarded for the generous contribution to the 2020 campaign Donor Ribbon awarded for the very generous contribution to the 2024 campaign Nikonian since 15th Jan 2009
Fri 24-Sep-21 12:05 PM
>I see that I can export a jpeg from LR as a 16 bit TIFF or PSD
>and then open the new file in LR or PS. Would that be roughly
>comparable?

I only mention Affinity Photo for that is what I use. Opening the JPEG into PS and changing it to 16-bit there would be the same as me opening the JPEG in Affinity Photo (just that I don't use Adobe software any more).

I specifically left out file formats. As noted JPEG is generally 8-bit. But that's a limitation of the editing software not the JPEG specification which allows support for 12-bit.

As already mentioned, you've already lost a good amount of information that you can't get back. If you need to edit, the issue is mitigating the artifacts.

Pete


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DaveP142 DaveP142

Is from: Dudley, UK
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#6. "RE: When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs" | In response to Reply # 5

DaveP142 Silver Member Nikonian since 19th Jul 2016
Fri 24-Sep-21 03:19 PM
>As noted JPEG is generally 8-bit. But that's a limitation of the editing software not the JPEG specification which allows support for 12-bit.
Thanks for that - otherwise I agree, this is damage limitation, not something to aim for!

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DaveP142 DaveP142

Is from: Dudley, UK
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#7. "RE: When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs" | In response to Reply # 3

DaveP142 Silver Member Nikonian since 19th Jul 2016
Fri 24-Sep-21 03:29 PM | edited Fri 24-Sep-21 03:31 PM by DaveP142
Thanks - I don't want to seem ungrateful, but you're preaching to the converted!
Having the two card slots I've been saving NEFs and Fine Large jpegs - just out of curiosity, to see if Nikon does better PP then me. Result:- It probably does, but I can't really see it. Ho, Hum!
The main lesson I'm taking away from this is to check the bottom corner of that top screen regularly!
Having said that, I would observe that changing capture file options seems a strange choice to favour with button options. I mean, how often do people need to alter their image quality options - apart from those in the middle of nowhere when the waterhole really kicks off, of course...

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DaveP142 DaveP142

Is from: Dudley, UK
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#8. "RE: When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs" | In response to Reply # 4

DaveP142 Silver Member Nikonian since 19th Jul 2016
Fri 24-Sep-21 03:35 PM | edited Fri 24-Sep-21 03:35 PM by DaveP142
That's more than I dared dream of - Thanks!

I'll take a look, but you are correct - I am really only concerned, right now, with making the best of my bad jobs...

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JonK JonK

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#9. "RE: When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs" | In response to Reply # 0

JonK Moderator Awarded for his high level skills and in-depth knowledge in various areas, such as Wildlife,... Donor Ribbon awarded for his very generous support to the Fundraising Campaign 2015 Donor Ribbon awarded for the generous contribution to the 2014 campaign Donor Ribbon awarded for the generous contribution to the 2020 campaign Nikonian since 02nd Jul 2004
Fri 24-Sep-21 08:51 PM
To get back to the original question and having looked at your profile:

• The best option is to bring it into Lightroom and do whatever you would normally do in post. Obviously you have less data to work with. Color correction or changes, especially a substantial white balance shift, will be exceedingly difficult. But having adjusted thousands of client JPGs over the years. JPG post processing is not the end of the world. And, of course, once in Lightroom the question of other file type is moot.

• Photoshop might be marginally better for a truly lousy JPG. There are some tricks with layers — duplicating what you have and then working with blending modes (and possibly masks) to make adjustments — but to me the hassle of working in Photoshop in this instance just is not worth the result. For the rare time that I do take a JPG into Photoshop, I save it as a Photoshop file. It’s lossless and a reasonably-efficient file size.

Jon Kandel
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DaveP142 DaveP142

Is from: Dudley, UK
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#10. "RE: When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs" | In response to Reply # 9

DaveP142 Silver Member Nikonian since 19th Jul 2016
Sat 25-Sep-21 09:48 AM | edited Sat 25-Sep-21 09:49 AM by DaveP142
To summarise then, beyond perhaps buying specialist software there's little to be done - a respectable jpeg, by definition, needs little help and a terrible one is probably beyond help - especially mine!

Thanks. I really appreciate perspectives like this. I started out, having discovered how easy it can be to change file types by accident, feeling that it would be sensible to explore any options, and now I know - it's a rabbit hole best ignored :grin:

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The Shooter

Is from: Perth, AU
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#11. "RE: When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs" | In response to Reply # 0

The Shooter Silver Member Nikonian since 26th Apr 2007
Wed 24-Nov-21 05:53 AM
Hi Dave,
If you go to my post over here;

https://www.nikonians.org/forum/topic/424-2592-2592/how-to-light-a-photograph-to-take-a-photograph-of-it-

You will see that I have a picture taken in jpeg, by my wife, on a very small camera (5meg) around 16 years ago. I was trying to give my wife a surprise and get a reasonable print for Xmas (10 x 8).
My point is that the last image in my post was me using the new Enhancer in PS. It gave a reasonable result from such a tiny file 130kb.
As you say your camera was capable of raw, I am assuming you have about 24meg at your disposal, so your jpegs would be of a far better quality than mine, to start with.

Here is a youTube turotial link;



hope it helps.
Regards
Andy

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DaveP142 DaveP142

Is from: Dudley, UK
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#12. "RE: When you discover that you have been shooting jpegs" | In response to Reply # 11

DaveP142 Silver Member Nikonian since 19th Jul 2016
Wed 01-Dec-21 08:17 PM
Thanks. I do indeed have adequate numbers of pixels to play with these days :smile: I was more interested in the possibility of getting round an apparent loss of range in some of the Basic adjustments, but I guess I need to accept that data lost when converting to jpeg is, to all intents and purposes, gone for good.
However I am planning to try Super Resolution on some of my older smaller jpegs and I guess that a happy outcome will at least partly depend on accepting sizes that work rather than aiming too large. Thanks for the link - I hadn't found this one!

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G