saving formats?

[kaykay]

Hi, after I edit my photo's in Elements I save them as a copy and it will have jpg at the end of the file name. I have been told that I should not be saving my photo's as jpg's??? What should I be saving them as. I usually edit them, save to a cd and print at a lab. Also after saving them, a JPEG OPTIONS box appears, giving the choice of Low, med., high, and maxium. Can someone please explain this to me so I'll know which one to go with. When I first upload my photo's to Elements is there a way to save them in a diffrent format other than jpg. Sorry if my question's are confusing I'm still learning, so any advice you can give is very apreciated. Thanks

[Carbone]

Kaykay,

JPEG is a lossy format, this means your pictures loose information on each subsequent saving.

The Medium /*High and other settings are the level compression you apply to your pictures. A high compression (low quality setting) will compress your pictures a lot, making them smaller in Kilobytes (their size on the disk) but loosing a great deal of information. A low compression setting (High Quality) will keep the most information.

If you simply upload the image from your camera to the computer, adjust a few things, then save them once and don't play with them again, then JPEG is ok. If you open and save your pictures a lot of time, then JPEG is no good because compression will be applied on each time you save your images.

If this is your case, saving a lot, then consider using either TIFF (for printing with commercial printers) or PSD (for your own use). PSD is the Photoshop Element native format. It keeps all layers intact.

Hope this helps!

Ray

[kaykay]

Carbone, Thanks! So after saving when it comes to the JPEG OPTIONS I should choose (Low) to keep the most information. I think I've got it. Thanks for clearing things up for me.

[Carbone]

The opposite : Choose Maximum, for the maximum quality, saving the greatest quantity of details :)

Ray

[kaykay]

Okay, Thanks. I have been choosing maximum, but for some reason I thought maybe I wasn't doing it right. Won't bother you anymore...Thanks off to upload more photo's.

[Carbone]

You're not bothering.. !! We're here to help :D

Ray