Saving In Photoshop

Bountyphotographer

Hello, I was wondering about saving pictures after editing them in photoshop. Some will save them with the photoshop extension . It seems to be a good idea since one can always go back to it and see what has been done, but the file is huge 65 MB . I save my pictures in JPG 6 MB, because I have so many of them.
What do you think:dunno

Also what does the flatten image do when saving in photoshop?

claudermilk

It depends on what you want to do with the file. When I anticipate further edits down the road, I'll save in PSD format to retain my layers, 16-bit color, etc. If I'm done and no further edits are expected, I'll save to JPEG, which involves flattening and conversion to 8-bit RGB.

Flattening the image is just that. All your layers get merged down into one. This is necessary to save in formats that do not suport multiple layers like JPEG.

Bountyphotographer

claudermilk wrote:

It depends on what you want to do with the file. When I anticipate further edits down the road, I'll save in PSD format to retain my layers, 16-bit color, etc. If I'm done and no further edits are expected, I'll save to JPEG, which involves flattening and conversion to 8-bit RGB.

Flattening the image is just that. All your layers get merged down into one. This is necessary to save in formats that do not suport multiple layers like JPEG.

Sorry about the cross thread.
Ok JPEG is for me then. flattening the image is for PSD only, right?

thank you

BP

SloYerRoll

Pretty much what Chris said..

Bountyphotographer wrote:

Hello, I was wondering about saving pictures after editing them in photoshop. Some will save them with the photoshop extension . It seems to be a good idea since one can always go back to it and see what has been done, but the file is huge 65 MB . I save my pictures in JPG 6 MB, because I have so many of them.
What do you think

Get a bigger hard drive if you think your gonna do edits down the road. If your pretty certain it's not going to be photshopped again *i.e. the 6oooth shot of your dog! Just save the jpeg. If it's a favorite shot or potential portfolio stuff, save the .psd's. Memory is pretty cheap though and it gives you an opportunity to back up your pictures.

bham

Bountyphotographer wrote:

Hello, I was wondering about saving pictures after editing them in photoshop. Some will save them with the photoshop extension . It seems to be a good idea since one can always go back to it and see what has been done, but the file is huge 65 MB . I save my pictures in JPG 6 MB, because I have so many of them.
What do you think

Also what does the flatten image do when saving in photoshop?

What type of editing are you talking about. I don't save .psd files of images where I have done just levels or curves adjustments. Any images that I have done masking etc I save as .psd before flattening because of all the time it took to do the masking and occasionally I will want to come back and tweak the mask, create a clipping mask to adjust just that layer, change layers below it, etc. That way I don't have to start over. Also images that I have invested that much time into are usually more important to me and having another copy never hurts.

claudermilk

Bountyphotographer wrote:

Sorry about the cross thread.
Ok JPEG is for me then. flattening the image is for PSD only, right?

thank you

BP

No, no, no. Go back & re-read my last post. PSD allows layers, JPEG does not.

If space is a concern, like SloYerRoll said, get another drive. Last I looked 3/4 of a terabyte is less than $200 now. That said, I do two things to reduce storage space requirements: one I only convert RAWs that I feel are worth the effort and will get released. Two, I only retain the PSD/TIFF on the few hero files that have any significant pixel editing. So maybe 20% of my RAWs get converted at all and 1% of those retain a working PSD/TIFF file.

pathfinder

I save the original RAW file of course, and a level 10 or 12 grade jpg on multiple drives and DVDs.

I am beginning to think that I should be saving .psd's for images that I have extensive editing, with masks, as well.

raptorcaptor

After editing I'll save a 16 bit Tiff file, and a full size Jpg. Then I'll convert my Raw file to Dng and burn it to a DVD.