Jpeg loses quality over time?

[LightBright]

I shoot exclusively in RAW, but shooting around 700 images a day, I get a little crazy when I have post process all those images on my computer and send them with in 3 hours. I want to switch back to Jpeg because of this. A friend of mine who maid me convert to shooting in RAW in the first place because he maid me feel unprofessional still using Jpeg told me that even x-fine Jpeg loses data each time you open the file. Is this true? If it is, how can I prevent that? Maybe having multiple copies? Btw, I dont need to print big and my computer is running out of space.

Thanks again

[DonSchap]

JPEG quality loss only occurs if you resave it. A file does not change if it is archived or read-only (as on a CD ROM).

[Anbesol]

Just dont save over the original JPEG, and be sure to save edits in a non-compressed format like PSD.

[PWhite214]

Shoot in Raw, save directly to a cd or dvd, then convert to JPG and save to your hard disk. Might be a solution. As long as your exposure etc. is ok you can convert and rename the files at the same time with Irfanview. There might be other editors that can do it all at once, but Irfanview is free.

Phil

[Skyman]

can you shoot jpeg and raw? many cameras can, then you have the jpegs on your computer and you can archive the raw files. then you only need to post process the images you want to (instead of all of them) Incidentally jpegs are compressed but you only loose quality when you alter the file and save it again, opening and closing it for viewing it doesn't change it and for most photos the loss is so small that you won't tell until you have over written the file many many times.

[BlueRob]

As stated above...they loose quality when re-saved, but opening them I almost t sure does not alter the file. I shoot JPEG, save the files to my hardrive, when I want to edit any of the files I always save as a copy, leaving my original file untouched, that way if for some reason I want to go back to square one I have my original "fresh"

[LightBright]

Thanks guys for the help

"can you shoot jpeg and raw? many cameras can, then you have the jpegs on your computer and you can archive the raw files."

I can but I run out of card space real quick that way.

I think having two copies of all my jpeg's are the best method for me right now

[BlueRob]

I think having two copies of all my jpeg's are the best method for me right now

Actually you should always have a CD / DVD as a backup all the time...if you don't...I really recommend it....remember hard drives do fail sooner or latter. ;)

[LightBright]

Thanks for the tip but I do back up all of my files. Having two copies of my jpegs are good if I want a unedited version to copy and edit.

[Anbesol]

no, the edit version should be lossless, so a tiff or psd format. The tiff is lossless but you cannot save layers in tiff so thats why I recommended psd. Whenever you save as jpeg another compression occurs and tonal graduations are lost. only the original should be jpeg so theres only one compression that ever occurs between the photography and the final image.

PSD format is Adobe proprietary, if you're using something else like gimp or corel, I dont know what the formats called but I know they have layered lossless formats too.