Export Quality

[Laurel Austin]

I've been told that there is no difference in quality between the 8' and the 1'', only a smaller file which saves room on your PC and disc. Can anyone verify that?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Hi Laurel

There IS a difference between, just as there's a difference between quality 12 and quality 1' in Photoshop, but it's not a visible difference, so as long as you are keeping your original so you can always reexport in the future, it's not really a problem, and it does save hard drive space.

 

[Laurel Austin]

So do you recommend keeping with 1' even though they take up more space? In other words, what do you do?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Ok, let's take this from a different tack - what is your output purpose?

If I'm exporting for the web, for a screensaver, something along those lines, I'd often use 8' odd.

If I'm exporting files that I'm going to retouch and archive as 'finished' files, or that I might resave more than once or twice, I'd use 1''.

Is that a bit clearer?

 

[Mark Sirota]

A corollary to Victoria's question: Why do you care about the space?

One common workflow model with Lightroom is to delete your exported JPEGs once you're done with them. That is, you delete once you've made the print or sent the mail or uploaded to the web. You can always recreate them by exporting again.

In this case size may still be a concern, but not because you care how much space they're taking.

 

[Laurel Austin]

Thanks Victoria.
I had just been told that they print the same, with less space on the machine. Just cause I have an external hard drive, doesn't mean I want to fill it up to capacity before it's time unnecessarily.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Yeah, for small prints they'll be fine, just probably best not to resave numerous times.

 

[kristi]

Resaving?

Is it bad to resave files? Does it do something to the image quality?

 

[Replytoken]

Is it bad to resave files? Does it do something to the image quality?

JPEG files are lossy, meaning that they have some deterioration in image quality every time they are re-saved (as opposed to lossless files which do not deteriorate). Try it for yourself and see. By the fourth or fith generation save, the file will look substantially worse.

--Ken

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Ken, now you go back and try it.... with a quality 12/1'' jpeg, you can resave quite a lot of times (i.e. lots and lots) before you see any visible difference. Lower quality will be visible though.

 

[Replytoken]

Ken, now you go back and try it.... with a quality 12/1'' jpeg, you can resave quite a lot of times (i.e. lots and lots) before you see any visible difference. Lower quality will be visible though.

You are correct that loss is dependent on compression, Victoria. I was trying to answer Kristi's question in a more generic sense about the nature of lossy files. Sorry for any misunderstanding.

--Ken

 

[sizzlingbadger]

Just cause I have an external hard drive, doesn't mean I want to fill it up to capacity before it's time unnecessarily.

But you can delete the files once you have printed them. You don't need to keep them as you can export them again.