Accidentally shot in .jpeg instead of raw

Hi,

 

While on vacation recently, I accidentally shot in .jpeg instead of .jpeg + Raw like I normally do. The majority of photos are okay, but since most were sunset/sunrise photos and I didn't have a lot of time to play with settings while I was taking the photos, I am missing the ability to experiment more with highlights, shadows, etc., as you can with a Raw file.

 

I don't do a lot of editing, and am still getting used to my year-old Rebel T6s and the newer version of DPP. I have used Photoshop in the distant past, but until a couple of months ago I had an ancient computer that wasn't compatible with the latest versions, and I haven't kept up with the latest advances. I was wondering if Photoshop had any capabilities to recover some details that DPP doesn't have? Or am I out of luck completely?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide!

I have no idea how DPP handles JPGs but most image editing programs will handle JPGs. One word of warning: subsequently opening, editing and saving JPGs degrades image quality because every cycle compresses the image. In this process image information is discarded and it cannot be recovered. With this in mind I would make a copy of the image and make sure there is always an original backup, just in case.

I would prefer a parametric image editor like Lightroom because it only stores changes that have to be made to the original and only processes all the changes when the image is exported or finalized.

Since JPGs don't have any excess of information highlight recovery is not possible, I don't think there is much difference between programs in the possible tweaking of JPGs, no magic formulas here.

I'd go with Lightroom because that is the program I'm familiar with, in your case Photoshop is probably your best bet; not saving JPGs in between steps but keeping with PSD files.

Success with editing.

It is possible to open a jpg file with ACR from inside Bridge. Hold the mouse key down on the image to see the choices.

It's not as good as having a real RAW file, but it does allow more sophisticated manipulation

I use an old version of Photoshop CS2 and one feature that I use is called Shadows/Highlights. You can find it under Image-Adjustments-Shadows/Highlights.

I use it a lot on my jpg images.

Thank you for all the replies. I'm still learning the newer version of DPP but it doesn't seem to allow much control. I am being careful to make copies and I'm keeping the originals on the card so I can retrieve if needed. Il

 

I find a few have highlight/shadow issues and I always think the .jpgs are a little soft. I always shoot Raw + .jpg, or at least Raw only. I must have changed it to save card space the last time I used the camera. I was really hoping to be able to play with the shot settings on a few of the photos. :(

 

I will try with Photoshop & now that my computer is newer, I could explore Lightroom, too. Thanks again for the help! It's appreciated!

Try this;

• Open the photo in Digital Photo Professional.
  
• From the File drop-down menu choose Convert and Save.
  
• Save the file in the TIFF format, Image Quality 10. Don't reduce the size of the image.
  
• The file can now be imported into Lightroom as a TIFF.
  

This will give you more editing control, it is not as good as RAW, but a lot better than JPG for manipulating.

About as good as you will be able to do.

 

There may be other solutions out there, but I am not experienced with them.

@mark: converting to TIFF wil not bring any extras, information that was lost in the (in camera) JPG conversion is lost forever. Converting to TIFF will only fill the gaps with useless information. In the further editing routine it will not be any better as long as the OP does not save the work. If intermediary steps need to be saved TIFF is indeed better, or PSD.

@mark: converting to TIFF wil not bring any extras, information that was lost in the (in camera) JPG conversion is lost forever. Converting to TIFF will only fill the gaps with useless information. In the further editing routine it will not be any better as long as the OP does not save the work. If intermediary steps need to be saved TIFF is indeed better, or PSD.

I stand corrected. I just toggled my Lightroom to import a folder of both RAW and JPG and it appears I have the same ability to adjust the JPG as I do with TIFF, so there is no advantage to bother with the TIFF conversion. Thank for correcting me on that, Jos.

It is possible to open a jpg file with ACR from inside Bridge. Hold the mouse key down on the image to see the choices.

It's not as good as having a real RAW file, but it does allow more sophisticated manipulation

 

Right-click "Open in Camera Raw" all ya gotta do..... good luck!

Thank you again, everyone. I will see what I can do in Photoshop and Camera Raw!

I think there are two separate questions in this thread. First, can you edit a jpeg? Yes, all software I use will allow you to edit jpegs, Second,

 

if Photoshop had any capabilities to recover some details that DPP doesn't have?

I think there are two separate questions in this thread. First, can you edit a jpeg? Yes, all software I use will allow you to edit jpegs, Second,

 

 

"if Photoshop had any capabilities to recover some details that DPP doesn't have?" No, data lost is data lost. The process of creating a jpeg discards information, and that information is gone.

 

 

Sorry about the double post

Hi,

 

Thank you for the reply. I know you can edit .jpg files so what I was really asking was more along the lines of your second question. Or, at least whether it's possible to do a little more with them in Photoshop, which I haven't used in years. I got some nice photos at sunset but they are slightly soft & a few are darker/lighter than the "live" view was. I haven't kept up with Photoshop the last few years so wanted to know what sort of advances had been made. I do know it's far better to shoot Raw from the get-go! :)

Hi,

 

While on vacation recently, I accidentally shot in .jpeg instead of .jpeg + Raw like I normally do. The majority of photos are okay, but since most were sunset/sunrise photos and I didn't have a lot of time to play with settings while I was taking the photos, I am missing the ability to experiment more with highlights, shadows, etc., as you can with a Raw file.

 

I don't do a lot of editing, and am still getting used to my year-old Rebel T6s and the newer version of DPP. I have used Photoshop in the distant past, but until a couple of months ago I had an ancient computer that wasn't compatible with the latest versions, and I haven't kept up with the latest advances. I was wondering if Photoshop had any capabilities to recover some details that DPP doesn't have? Or am I out of luck completely?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide!

There is a general principle, in terms of editability, of raw files vs. other formats including jpegs. RAW files contain all the information the sensor could capture at the moment the shot was taken. When you view the shot on screen, you are really just looking at a 'facsimile' of the shot. Some of this is due to the limitations of the equipment you are using to view the shot; some has to do with the software through which you view the shot. The point is that there is loads more information in the image 'capture' that can be taken advantage of. You will need specialized software...sometimes from the camera manufacturer (but not always) to 'drill down' in the image data and bring that data to something included in the photo you actually see.

All of this implies that the RAW file is the largest file of the photo. The fact that it might contain more information than you need or can use is the basis for changing the format of the photo from RAW to other, smaller, formats like jpeg. Jpeg is a popular format and contains most of the photo's "main" data. In many cases a jpeg format is perfect for your needs. When you reformat from RAW to jpeg, you throw away all that 'extra' data in a RAW file. But since you have already decided that extra data is not needed, there is no loss....other than (sometimes) many megabytes of file size.

Unfortunately, although you can slim down a RAW file by changing the file to jpeg, you cannot 'fatten' a file after conversion to get the formerly unused RAW data back.

Between using Shadows and Highlights as well as Levels in CS5 (and earlier), I have brought many an under-exposed JPEG back from the dead. Over-exposed? Not on your life.

 

--Lannie

In my experience, JPEGs in EOS cameras are low compression and preserve most of the image information. You can do radical tonal and color corrections on them using curves in Photoshop, and still the result will look very good. What you will not get out of JPEG are a little bit of clipped shadows and highlights that can be extracted from RAW. The latter ability is very rarely needed: I use it in less than 0.5% of shots, mostly to attempt salvaging shots that were accidentally badly under- or overexposed. And it won't do wonders. For all minimally decent shots, JPEG has all you need.

Open Photoshop>> Open>> Select your file>> Scoll to format and change this to RAW. Now you can open the file in ACR.

 

Just be aware of JPEG limitations. All your sliders will revert to zero each time they are reopened and no RAW edit file will be created.

If you have multiple shots of the same frame with different exposure settings (aperture or SS, or even ISO), you can often combine the jpegs to produce HDR images and pull what you'd like out of those. While the inherit limitations of a single jpeg remain unchanged, if you happened to shoot multiple exposures, you can sometimes pull a lot out of a combined image. Maybe this helps, maybe not, but that's one reason for the AEB function on your camera.