"JPEG-LS" (Lossless JPEG) -- Can LrC Ingest this Format?

[jclarkw]

Lightroom Version

12.1

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I found a promising slide-digitizing service that delivers files in this JPEG-LS. Can Lightroom Classic ingest it or be made to do so? -- jclarkw

 

[David_W]

JPEG-LS (usually a .jls file) is a rather unusual format to find standalone these days, though it is used as part of the DNG and DICOM standards. LrC does not understand JPEG-LS files. There were some Photoshop plugins produced for JPEG-LS, though we are going back to the days of Photoshop CS2 or thereabouts.

Can the slide digitising service not deliver in a more standard format such as TIFF or DNG?

 

[jclarkw]

JPEG-LS (usually a .jls file) is a rather unusual format to find standalone these days, though it is used as part of the DNG and DICOM standards. LrC does not understand JPEG-LS files. There were some Photoshop plugins produced for JPEG-LS, though we are going back to the days of Photoshop CS2 or thereabouts.

Can the slide digitising service not deliver in a more standard format such as TIFF or DNG?

David -- Puzzling, since Wikipedia tells me, "Adobe's DNG SDK provides a software library for encoding and decoding lossless JPEG with up to 16 bits per sample."

The service says it can produce TIFF for an extra charge, but it remains to be seen what bit depth the files can be. ("Lightroom can import 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit TIFF images.")

My issue is that most of my slides were taken on Kodachrome II, which, as you probably know, had not only very high spatial resolution but also very wide dynamic range. I need ot find a service that will allow me to dig into the highlights and shadows to bring out detail that would be permanently lost in an ordinary JPEG. Any thoughts? -- jclarkw

 

[jclarkw]

Update from Company (DspDave):

"Our images sensors record 13 bits per channel, and just like when the picture was originally taken, mother nature requires that there be fidelity loss, even with our 13 bits per channel. In the RAW form, each image is about 150MB. When imported into Photoshop (and I think lightroom) the image size blows back up from delivered 3 to 5 MB [8-bit JPEG-LS files] to full 150 MB. So, the 13 bits per channel are accessible."

Does this make any sense at all??? -- jclarkw

 

[tspear]

Not to me.

Tim

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Could ask them to send you a sample file so you can test it and figure out what's doable.

 

[David_W]

Puzzling, since Wikipedia tells me, "Adobe's DNG SDK provides a software library for encoding and decoding lossless JPEG with up to 16 bits per sample."

As I said in my initial reply, whilst JPEG-LS is used as part of the DNG and DICOM standards, it is rarely found as a standalone format, and I am fairly certain that Lightroom Classic will not accept a JPEG-LS file. Victoria's idea of asking for a sample file seems sensible.

There is scanner software out that can generate DNG files - VueScan certainly can. I have one of the legacy VueScan Professional licences with perpetual updates - newly bought licences only have a year of updates included. I have no idea what software the scanning bureau might use; it may well be something proprietary from their scanner vendor.

My family planned to send our slides out to a scanning service until a recent count discovered that there are around a thousand, almost all Kodachrome. At that point, the plan changed to buying a used Nikon Coolscan with the slide feeder attachment. I figure that I can buy a scanner, run these slides through and sell the equipment again once I've finished scanning for much cheaper overall than paying a service to scan that number of slides for me. I can always use VueScan to bulk scan the images and then adjust the scans later on. Note that if you're looking at used Nikons, you really need the SF-210 slide feeder if you have slides in cardboard mounts, such as the Kodachrome slides I need to scan - the earlier SF-200 is known to jam with cardboard mounts or if the slides are in variable thickness mounts. A high-end scanner is probably overkill from a resolution point of view, as these slides were almost all shot on cheap lenses by people of modest skill, but there's no way I'm tackling a thousand slides without a decent feeder!

I really need to see what negatives we have lying around, too - as it might be better to try to scan those with an appropriate Nikon attachment than to scan the prints. I know my parents were not that diligent in filing negatives, as they rarely had anything reprinted.

 

[jclarkw]

According to Dave (see quote above), his files can be imported by Photoshop. I "own" photoshop, according to my subscription with Adobe, but I've never used it. Does anyone know if it will export files without loss in another format that can be imported by LrC? -- jclarkw

 

[clee01l]

According to Dave (see quote above), his files can be imported by Photoshop. I "own" photoshop, according to my subscription with Adobe, but I've never used it. Does anyone know if it will export files without loss in another format that can be imported by LrC? -- jclarkw

Photoshop is a pixel editing image app. That means when you import the compressed image from the Lossless JPEG file format, it will be expanded to its full pixel size. In PS, any adjustments that you make to the image will be save to the exported file. In Photoshop, you have several file format options as well as Compressed and uncompressed options. TIFF and DNG can be losslessly compressed. So choosing one of those would be your best choice. A 16 bit color is preferred over an 8 bit color image. JPEG is always 8 bit and always lossy compressed.


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