The ultimate guide to file types in photography: part 2 - other

[@timfishy]

Best "file type" video In have seen. The book and chapter analogy was excellent

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Awesome, I really appreciate that. And thanks for watching.

[@RayLombardi]

Thank you so very much for making these two videos! It never stops amazing me how much and how little we actually know at the same time. Socrates had it right! Cheers, Ray.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Ray. Very true! I know only one thing - that your comment was the only time someone has referred to Socrates in a comment on my videos. Thanks for watching.

[@bruceborrowman4342]

Exceptional set of videos explaining the subject of file formats. I am going to be recommending them both to all my photo associates. Thank you for putting both of these together.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

That's very kind of you Bruce. I'm glad it was of use to you and thanks for watching.

[@paulgraunke6670]

Heartily agree! The series is the most thorough, most informative discussion of file formats I've seen (or read). Strongly recommend to all, particularly newbies. If I knew then what I know now, I would have shot literally thousands of photos differently.

[@thomasriera2030]

Great video, super clear! I was looking for a good explanation of bit depth and this was it. It always bothered me that going from a RAW file (14-bit) to a TIFF produced a much larger file. No one was able to explain this to me. I love that you dive deeply into the technical aspects and remove the "black box". You do it well. Perhaps you could explain the technical detail behind "exposing to the right".

[@baskion1]

Thanks a lot. Your channel is a real find for me. A lot of useful information.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

That's really nice to hear. Glad it was useful. Thanks for watching.

[@garretmurphy4544]

Thank you so much Scott, for taking the time to respond, Its really appreciated. I rarely use Photoshop, to replace the sky sometimes. So I’ll continue to create virtual copies:) I still have no idea where the original file is kept by Lightroom Classic , oh well!!! Love your tutorials and absolutely love your wildlife photography(birds mainly)

[@mitchellj.oconnor2508]

Awesome information. Thank you for sharing.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Mitchell. Glad it was useful. Thanks for watching.

[@davidligon6088]

Another great video. I am impressed by how fluid your presentation is. Some other points: PNG is one of the few formats that supports transparency but, like JPEG, does not support larger color spaces.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Thanks David, much appreciated. And good points to add.

[@johnlocke7097]

Another great video

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Thanks for watching again John.

[@DerekWCole-ls8zv]

Outstanding (continued) breakdown and discussion -- again "expertly" presented -- of file information every "photog" should know. "Bravo Zulu" for you.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Thank you Derek. Much appreciated.

[@janvangastel6763]

Very interesting video again. Following your advice I saved a photograph - after post processing - from my OM-1 in . tif format. It's huge: 379 Mb, compared to to about 20 Mb when saving in jpeg.

[@barneylaurance1865]

I wish Lightroom would allow exporting to multiple file types (e.g. Jpeg and Tiff, or high res jpeg and low res jpeg) simultaneously. As well as being able to save the export settings along with the edit decisions for a photo or group of photos and repeat the export after editing.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Barney. There are a couple of options. You can create export presets so that you don't have to keep selecting the export settings each time. The other thing you can do is use the 'export with previous' option to apply the same export settings to the next photo or photos. You can also highlight multiple photos on the filmstrip and apply the same export settings to them all. So it does most of what you want, just not exporting to multiple file types simultaneously. But if you create some export presets you can export in multiple formats in far fewer clicks. I hope that helps. Thanks for watching.

[@barneylaurance1865]

@@WalksOnTheWildSide Thanks Scott. Yes, I should go and set up some presets. I'm still going to be a bit fixated on the missing feature though. Apparently it's not possible for plugin authors to make it so it would have to be Adobe. For work I'm a software developer, so I compare photography to that a bit, and it frustrates me that photography tools are not as automat-able as programming tools. Software is also exported as multiple file types (e.g. zip, exe, msi, apk etc etc) and when we work on software it's standard to choose what file types we want to deliver and then set up a command that can be repeated many times and exports our software in as many file types as we want, from a single click. Then we can go and edit our source code again and repeat the export. With photography I think of the combination of the raws and the edit decisions as like the source code. If I want to deliver a package of x different file types from one photo I should be able to set it all up and then press the button - and then maybe decide to add bit of texture and darken the shadows and re-run the export. I think that probably exists in video production already because there's maybe more demand for it than there is in photos, and videos are often post-produced made by teams rather than individuals.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

@@barneylaurance1865 Not in Adobe’s video editing, (Premiere Pro) you can only export one file at a time. And you have to wait for the file to fully encode before it lets you start the next export. Maybe it’s a peculiarity of all Adobe software.

[@barneylaurance1865]

@@WalksOnTheWildSide Ah that's a shame that Premiere doesn't do it either. Seems even more likely in video that you might want to always render to e.g. 8k, 4k and HD files to use in different places. I'm maybe thinking more of the more specialised VFX software that teams of artists would work together in from places like Foundry where I used to work on the website.

[@barneylaurance1865]

@@WalksOnTheWildSide Does Premiere let you save the export settings within a project and repeat the export with a single click, even if it will only do one file? Or do you have to go through a dialogue to choose file type and location every time? I know Lightroom has "export with previous" but that's very different from saving the export settings as an attribute of the image in the database.

[@a.beckwith4576]

Well that’s my brain in powder…. Will have to watch a few times , but thank-you for this information . Another great video.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Thanks for watching.

[@danafucci5937]

Thanks!

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Thank you very much for the tip.

[@hugoportella4486]

Excellent explanation! But if I just copy and paste any JPEG file, no changes in quality... is that correct?

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Hugo. It depends what you mean by copy and paste. if you create a copy of a JPEG by copying and pasting within your file explorer (or finder if you use a Mac) then all it is doing is creating a copy of the file and you won't get any degradation of the file. But if you mean copying and pasting withing the software - for example you have a JPEG open in Photoshop and select all and copy paste to a new tab/image you will get compression and loss when you save the new file. I hope that helps. Thanks for watching.

[@garretmurphy4544]

Hi Scott, I have really enjoyed watching and learning through all your wonderful tutorial videos you have created on youtube, thank you! I have a quick question, something you didn’t touch on, and I would love your thoughts. When I finished an edit in Lightroom Classic and about to save the file as a jpeg for social media use. I usually ask Lightroom to make a copy of that file for possible future editing! Does that copy has lost quality? And is it a good idea? It also helps if for some reason Lightroom can’t find my file after a transfer to JPEG, then I can always go back to the copy I have made! Love to know your thoughts Thanks Garret

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Garret. When you create the copy in Lightroom, do you do this using the 'Create Virtual Copy' option? If so, you've got nothing to worry about. Firstly it's not a real copy. It uses the same raw file as the starting point for the virtual copy and saves a copy of each of the adjustments you made in your Lightroom catalogue. So effectively it's just copying all the adjustments you made and then applying them to the raw file next time you open them in the develop module. This is a great way of being able to go back to your edits if you are only editing in Lightroom. It's more problematic if you do things in other software as well. So I don't do this because I am often using Photoshop and other software as well as Lightroom. If you are creating a copy some other way, let me know and I'll answer based on that. Great question, and thanks for watching.

[@StephenBridgett]

Well done, excellent explanation of file types. I have 2 comments which can be viewed as corrections. First, when I convert my Canon RAW CR2 files to DNG they are in fact smaller not larger as you indicated in the video. Second, regarding JPG files, I can't imagine anyone saving a file 30 times but the degradation was not really apparent in the channel. Perhaps make changes to the file and save it, say, 5 times and then show the degradation by zooming in. Don't get me wrong, I always shoot RAW. Cheers, thanks for your channel.

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Stephen. I didn't say that DNG files were larger than raw. I think you might have interpreted my comment that if I were to convert all my old raw files to DNG that I will use more hard drive space as meaning that they will be bigger. But it's not correct to say that DNG files are either larger or smaller than raw. It very much depends on what type of raw file you have, including things like whether or not you have a compressed raw format. DNGs can definitely be larger than raw, but can also be smaller than raw. Remember all raw formats are different. Thanks for watching.

[@lakevibe]

'JpgCrush' for JPEG compression (8-bit, progressive, optimized).

[@randomviewer3494]

You very briefly say you wouldn't recommend saving raw files directly to DNG in camera. Now I have a Pentax camera that can do it and I've been shooting DNG raw for years now. Could you maybe elaborate why you advice against it? Always happy to learn more :)

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi. Sorry, I misspoke there. I meant to say that I don't recommend converting your in-camera raw file to DNG, but it didn't quite come across that way. If you can create DNGs in camera, that's great and keep doing it. But lots of people convert their native raw file that was created in-camera to a DNG upon importing it. But there is really no point to doing that. Sorry for the confusion and thanks for watching.

[@randomviewer3494]

@@WalksOnTheWildSide Ah thanks for the clarification!

[@tamarawilliams3699]

Omgosh. This video is so freakin great. I needed this education desperately. You have explained so much. I will want to confirm my understanding here. If I transfer a file from Lightroom to Photoshop, you stated the file transfers as a tiff file. Great. Makes sense. Now, if I do anything to that file in Photoshop, does that edit have any bearing on the file in Lightroom? And so, my question is really, if I like the way I edited an image in Lightroom today, and transfer to photoshop to add my watermark and make small adjustments not available to me in Lightroom, can I go back to Lightroom at a later time and change my edits there without degrading the image? Man, I hope that was clear. Thanks so much. Your USA Biggest Fan. - Tammy

[@WalksOnTheWildSide]

Hi Tammy. I'm really pleased it was useful. If you start your edit it in Lightroom and send it to Photoshop by right-clicking on the image on the filmstrip then click 'edit in' and 'edit in photoshop' it will sen it as a TIFF file. Once you've done what you need to do in photoshop, if you close the tab that the photo is on, it will ask you if you want to save it. If you click yes, it will send your photo back to Lightroom as a TIFF. It will also save a TIFF file of the version you edited in photoshop in the source folder. As long as you had corrected any blown out highlights or crushed shaows before you sent it to Photoshop you won't lose anything. But if you didn't, you will lose the chance to correct them. All that being said, did you know you can add watermarks in Lightroom? If you go to 'edit', then 'edit watermarks' you can create a new watermark or upload one. Then the watermark will be available to choose as an option when you export from Lightroom. (You might have to restart lightroom, after you've created the watermark before it becomes available in the export options). I hope that makes sense, but ask again if not. Thank for watching.