[kaulike]

Sally,

This looks like JPG compression to me---throwing out data that is not needed to maintain visual coherency. Are you sure you aren't comparing the histograms from your original file and the post-compression JPG?

What's the file size difference between the JPG you create and the one you download?

(BTW, that's a fantastic restoration, I follow all your posts with a sense of urgency)

[Sally]

Thank you every one for trying to help me unravel this mystery. You kept asking me questions which made ma keep going back over what I had done.

I was certainly taking the histogram from the compressed image before I sent it and comparing it to the image I downloaded. There was so much tone drop out I just couldn’t work with the images.

Finally I’ve worked out what I was doing. Because I can’t sit at all I work while standing at the computer and that needs to be for short periods. I.e. I save my work and come back to it many times. A bad thing to do with JPEG.

What I was doing was saving in bitmap because that was the only option available. I now find I can save in JPEG, open in PhotoShop and save as TIFF. The problem was accruing when I saved as bitmap.

Thanks for the information on curves but I just can’t get the hang of them. I live on a farm miles from anywhere I couldn’t go to Photoshop classes if they even existed. At 63 my learning curve is pretty lousy!!!!

Thanks all, you made me find out what I was doing wrong.

Sally

[kaulike]

For someone whose learning curve is "lousy", your knowledge base is pretty fantastic. If you don't use curves it is apparent to me that you don't need them. Keep up the good work!

[CJ Swartz]

Sally, I quite agree with Kaulike -- your experience and knowledge as a retoucher and your current level of knowledge of Photoshop translate into excellence in your work -- whether you know a particular method or not. The end result is what counts.

If there are any techniques that would speed up your work, since you have to stand to work, I guess those would be helpful to learn. I avoided learning keystroke shortcuts for years, but have to admit that they do save time. Curves continue to be a problem for me -- I can screw an image up faster using curves than any other technique -- but I'm gonna learn to use them someday! :p

[Sally]

Thank you kaulike and CJ for your kind words.

I have been a retoucher/restoration artist for about 20 years. I have the “eye” already. It’s a matter of using what I know with new tools. Mostly rubber stamp and some very light airbrushing.

I did find learning PhotoShop hard to begin with and didn’t bother to learn the key strokes, I feel that was a good idea. I’m now gradually introducing them.

I’m now living on a retirement pension, but just love using Photoshop. My favourite pastime is restoration. I get a little work from a camera store.

Now I know how to down load photos without tone loss, I can do a challenge when I get an urge to practice.

Cheers Sally

[Doug Nelson]

This is actually a very good lesson. I'm glad someone came along to point this out.

Working in jpg, even on our Challenges which are downloaded as JPG files, is not a good idea. JPG is a lossy format, so every time you save it recalculates how much information it can throw away, and you never get that back.

So first thing to do is 'save as...' a PSD or TIF file. Then do your work, and absolute last thing export a JPG version only for submission, not for storage or printing or anything else.

[john_opitz]

Also Mr. Nelson. What I like to add to this is. That's why some color geeks on jpg's(and the web as well for displaying pictures). Doing all the color correction to an image. To getting an image to perfection on screen, and to format the image to jpeg. Is a..............waste.? You don't have to have it perfect, per say. The blue channel gets hit the hardest. The rest of the image as well as the blue channel also depends on the rate of compression on how it gets wacked. Having ImageReady is good to have, to see what's happening to that. And then adjusting for that. Then you have the browsers' issue,...ect..ect.. on the web, on how its displayed. With all this is............is like in that old movie where Al Capone, wacks those guys on Feb.14. The St. Valentines Day Massacre.