Does jpeg lose quality when renamed, copied, saved? Phone camera settings?
 

I read online that jpeg files lose quality every time they are copied, renamed or saved because they are recompressed every time and that they should be converted to .tiff files before doing any of the above. I thought this forum would be a good place to find out whether that is truth or myth and how to convert if needed.

Also, this will probably make many of you cringe, but here goes...this is the reason I ask:
I take a lot of photos with my phone, many of which are not of any of importance. However, there are times that I have taken photos of relatives and special occasions that I would like to keep, rename, archive and possibly edit.
I don't always have a camera with me, but almost always have my phone. It is convenient, fast and easy. I had not really thought about the file type the photos were being saved in until recently. :smack: I have been so busy figuring out how to get old photos into digital form that I never even considered how current digital photos were being saved. Better late than never! :dunce:

My phone (samsung S7) has been set to save photos as jpeg, but has settings that I could change if I knew what was best. I hardly ever post to social media, so that is not a concern for me as it would be for my grown kids. The phone can use up to a 200GB SD card. I know .tiff file are much larger than jpeg, but I believe I would have room to save them on the phone until I could download them to my computer/external hard drive. Below is a screen shot of some of the possible settings.

What would you recommend?

Short answer, compressing an image to JPEG will always lose quality. If you open an image file (JPEG, TIFF, whatever), modify it, then save it to JPEG, it will usually recompress and therefore have less quality than the original. Copying or renaming a JPEG file will usually not recompress. It depends on the software you're using and how you're using it.

Your phone supports saving photos as "raw" which uses the DNG file format which is similar to TIFF that you mentioned. If you're going to be editing photos, I would turn that setting on (it's in the first screenshot you posted) because this format will let you start with the maximum possible quality instead of a JPEG which was already compressed. Then you won't lose quality until the very end when you save as JPEG so you can send it to family and friends or to the photo center.

In either case, please archive/back-up the original file and only modify a copy of it, even if the original is a TIFF or DNG. Then you can always go back to the original if you need to.

If you're going to be opening, saving, closing, then reopening and editing the same file again, please make sure you're starting with a TIFF or DNG--if the original was JPEG, save a copy as TIFF or DNG first, keeping the original around as described above.

Just copying and renaming a jpeg via a file browser is not going to alter it in any way. Opening and editing will, as noted. It is possible to rotate jpeg images without recompressing them too, but only some specialized programs can do this.

Is opening a jpeg in the preview program on a MacBook and then exporting as a tiff file a proper way to convert jpeg to tiff?

So it sounds like, if I want to rename jpeg photos to something more meaningful than the numbers assigned when taken, I should find the file on my computer and rename it without opening it in some program. Also, if I want to do any other editing, I should convert to tiff first. If that is not correct, please let me know.

Does it make any difference what method is used to convert to tiff.....Preview on mac, paint on windows, online converters, etc? I couldn't find anything on this site about how to do it.

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What is a good method to convert tiff to jpeg or jpeg to tiff......or does it make any difference?

Yes, rename in file manager. Converting with preview on mac or paint or any photo editing program should be ok.
You don't have to convert to tiff before editing as long as the result is saved to a new file, though it could be a safeguard to avoid overwriting the old image I suppose.

When I right click on a file it has a choice to duplicate and also a choice to copy. What is the difference? (MacBook)

Never mind the above question. I found the answer. Duplicate makes a copy in the same location with "copy" added to the file name. Copy allows a different location to be chosen.