Guidance on converting from JPEG to TIFF, please.

[jansel70]

Hello Rootschat photo editing pros,

I have recently turned my family history attention to dealing with the many photos/images I have in the family collection. At this stage I would appreciate some guidance on how to deal with the various (1) digital image files downloaded from our family cameras/memory cards, and (2) digital images sent to me electronically.

All are JPEG files with varying file sizes. Many have good pixel dimensions (eg 4000x3000), others not so good (eg 687x983).

Questions:
1. Does it make sense to progressively convert these to TIFF before any editing (I have developed some basic skills using native software available on my Mac desktop) to avoid further deterioration?
2. The software also allows me to change “Resolution” (I guess this refers to DPI Height & DPI Width) - should I be doing this now, or is this only applicable if/when the image is to be printed?

Many thanks for your advice and comments.

... Sel

[Palladium]

The site:
https://www.stockphotosecrets.com/questions-answers/technical/what-are-tiff-images.html
..seems to describe TIFFs and TIFs well..

[mike175]

The first thing to say is that you can only work with what you have. I always scan paper photos to TIFF files and keep the master copy (of the file) untouched so I always have the original to go back to if needed. If you're starting with someone else's JPEG you can usually get pretty good results from editing it as it is, also keeping the original untouched and editing a copy.

A lot depends on how much editing is needed, but I usually find less is better . . . I have seen plenty of over-edited photos which bear little resemblance to the original. The biggest mistake with JPEGs is to repeatedly edit and save them as the applied compression will degrade them progressively, although most photo editors will allow you to set the amount of compression when you save the file.

There are many here better qualified than me, who may have better advice.

Mike.