Q&A: More Questions About JPEG and TIFF
Thanks for your recent article about choosing between JPEG and TIFF. But I still have a question: What if I edit my JPEG photo and then save it using a different file name? Is the original JPEG photo unchanged? If so, why would I need to convert to TIFF?
--Edward Drizard, Omaha
That's a good question, Edward. Working with lossy formats like JPEG can lead to subtle problems. In your example, you're right--if you choose "Save As" and give your edited photo a new name, the original image is unchanged.
But you're ignoring the effect that saving your changes has on the new photo. What format did you just use to save it? If you say "JPEG," then you've sacrificed some image quality in the process. And that's bad, because this is the image you've been editing, so it's ostensibly the one you're really interested in. So to get the best image quality from your new image, save it in JPEG format with the absolute least compression possible, or save it as a compression-free TIFF.
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