Files with DigitalCreative.info's Guide to Digital Photography and Image Manipulation

You've taken your pictures with your camera .......... now what do you do? You can download them straight from your camera, using the proprietary software, or you can put the memory card into a card reader and download the files to a folder of your choice, wherever you want to store them on your hard-drive. One tip ......... be organised with your folders right from the start! Dates, places, whatever is right for you, but have some sort of system if you want to be able to find a particular picture a few months down the line when you have thousands stored by then! Another tip ......... always keep your original files intact and separate from folders of work in progress. It's easy to accidentally overwrite an original file and regret its loss within minutes! Keep them well away from one another in different folders.

The files from you camera will often be jpegs, occasionally TIFFs (in the case of digital SLRs there is an option for RAW files). Once you open those files on your screen you need to consider how and where to save them. When you are absolutely sure that you've finished working on them, and they are as good as they can be, flatten any layers and save as a PSD file into your new folder for finished images. Saving your work as a PSD file means that your image information is saved in an uncompressed manner and can be opened, worked on, saved and closed again, as often as you wish without any loss in image quality. If you save your file as a jpeg, even at highest quality, the compression involves an inevitable loss of image information and, therefore, of quality when it's re-opened. The more times it's opened, closed and saved again, even if no changes are made, the more obvious the loss of quality will become; it's a cumulative effect. Personally, I would never store image files as jpegs if they might be opened to work on again. If you open a jpeg on screen, look at it and close it without saving any changes, then no loss will occur. If you transfer jpeg files from folder to folder, to storage cards via copying and pasting in 'My computer', or to a cd direct from a folder, then there is no loss of information, either. It's the act of opening and re-saving that effects the loss.

If you have enough space on your hard-drive for pictures that are being worked on I would strongly recommend that the files are saved as PSDs with any extra layers, that have been used, still open. In this way if, when the images are printed or projected, and you find a hitherto unnoticed fault or it needs some colour correction in one area, then the changes can be effected more readily and there is no loss of quality

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