1 Reply Latest reply: Nov 22, 2014 8:54 AM by MichelBParis RSS

    What is the best file format to work in, with PSE11

    Peter Hewitt Community Member

      For years I have been editing and saving my cartoons in JPEG format. They looked fine on my site and I was happy. But then uh-oh yesterday while perusing PSE Help I read that I should be editing and saving in Photoshop's own PSD format because saving JPEGs diminishes the quality of the artwork. Then, after looking into it further, I read that TIF files are by far the best unless you're displaying your stuff on a webpage where that format often isn't recognized by the browser in which case you should use PNG format which is the awesome "new gif". I also learned that I should work always from the original image, not from the saved JPEG file, although my first question here would be if you're not supposed to ever Save a JPEG, how can you "close down" your day's work on Photoshop, go have a beer, and then open it again the next day for further editing? Or protect your work from an unexpected and unsaved-image-destroying power failure during a long editing session? How do you keep the image "original"?? Anyway, my stuff scans in as a PNG file so, unless someone can set me straighter, I guess I'll leave it as that. Cheerz in advance for any advice.

        • 1. Re: What is the best file format to work in, with PSE11
          MichelBParis Community Member

          Let's divide the question in three stages:

          - Originals. They can be jpeg or raw for photos from cameras, or jpeg or tiff (also png?) for scans. You can always keep them and use copies instead of overwriting them. Raw format is special, you can't alter their data so that editing is saved in non-destructive way.

          - working or archive format: what you have read is true. To keep the best quality, you use either tiff or psd (not much difference). PNG, which stores transparency, is good for web work, but if you edit with layers, use tiff or psd in the working stage. This can be summarized : don't use jpeg if it's not the final output format.

          - final output : jpeg is perfectly ok if it's the final stage and you don't choose too much compression. It's up to you to choose if you don't want to re-edit  your pictures later on. If you think you might re-edit, see above for working stage (tiff or psd). With raw files, keep the raw file and the edits (xmp sidecar files or DNG format); if you keep the 'recipe', you don't need to keep the final output, you can recreate it when needed.