Lossless Conversion

[wequegirl]

I shoot JPEG and I understand it is a lossy format. I wish to convert to a lossless format for my better images. Can someone tell me what is the best format and how do I convert the images. I DO NOT have Photoshop nor do I know how to use Photoshop. I have a very simple Windows photo program and it does offer conversion, I just don't know which to use that would be lossless and also still convenient to handle the images. Thanks

[donoreo]

You are starting with lossy, so you cannot get back what is already gone. You can lose more every time you save a JPG. You could convert to TIFF.

The best method would be to shoot RAW, if your camera supports it. Your camera would have come with software that is capable of converting RAW to something else.

I just looked at the gallery, your D300 does support RAW. I am a Canon person so I cannot help with any specifics on the Nikon software.

You did not even mention the name of what software you are using.

[markgozz]

As donoreo said you should shoot in raw to maintain all the info in your image file then you can use Nikons free ViewNX 2 software to convert to what ever file format you want but keep a copy of your raw file as a backup .

Mark

[OldBoy]

Firstly to degrade a Jpeg you would have to save it thousands of time before you notices the image been degraded. Secondly, every time you work on an image use the save as option, to save the image as DSC_XXXX_ALTERED.JPG. In this way the original JPEG will remain unaltered.

I have a D800 and saving the JPEG, which is about 20mb as a TIFF, would result in a TIFF of 105mb. Each time you made changes to it, the file size would increase.

My advise is don't worry about saving the JPEG, as long as you save it at full strength, it won't make much difference.

[wave01]

hi apart from being a lossless format RAW also captures more detail to start with so you could bring back details of your image in post processing. depending on what you shoot the shooting RAW makes a lot of sense,

[Dukatum]

Originally Posted by wequegirl

I shoot JPEG and I understand it is a lossy format. I wish to convert to a lossless format for my better images.

Simply set your camera to shoot in raw (RAW doesn't exist) there is plenty of free software on the net for editing/converting your raw image into other formats such as TIFF or JPG. Photoshop not required, but programs such as Lightroom and Adobe Aftershot Pro are very good for managing your raw files as they are non-destructive meaning they never do any changes to the original file you downloaded from the camera.

[Ashleyj]

Originally Posted by Dukatum

Simply set your camera to shoot in raw (RAW doesn't exist)...

Maybe so but everyone and their mother refers to it as RAW so will you please get off your hobby horse.

[donoreo]

Originally Posted by Ashleyj

Maybe so but everyone and their mother refers to it as RAW so will you please get off your hobby horse.

Agreed. Raw is not an image format specification (unless your camera supports DNG then it sort of is), but to keep things simple, everyone treats it as such with the knowledge that raw is different on every camera model.

[OldBoy]

Raw is a compressed TIFF file format.

[donoreo]

Originally Posted by OldBoy

Raw is a compressed TIFF file format.

Yes, but it is different on every camera, hence the updates to Adobe Camera Raw, etc.