Any advantage to saving a file as a tiff or pds when first working on it?

Question

I have a point and shoot camera that takes great pictures but only saves in JPEG format.
I've been using PSE 10 to process them but I've been wondering if there would be some advantage to immediately saving them as TIFF's or PSD's when importing them? I'm thinking specifically about loss of clarity or crispness.

Answer 1

Before I shot raw I only captured jpegs.  I learned a while ago that you can process a jpeg image in ACR, but you've got to remember that the jpeg is a compressed image that will already have had certain criteria addressed in camera (brightness, contrast, sharpening, etc.).  Raw images are totally unprocessed (and non destructable) so they're akin to the negatives you used to have with film.
Where ACR can be really useful when processing jpeg images is with the wider range of exposure adjusters at your disposal, e.g. Temperature, Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, Brightness, Contrast, Clarity, etc.  You'll be amazed at how much information you can pull out of an underexposed jpeg using these tools, as opposed to the simple Levels adjustments in PSE.  When you're done in ACR you just click Open as usual and the image appears in Editor for further tweaking.  Finally, having cropped and sharpened, you can then save it as a jpeg image.
The quickest way to open a jpeg in ACR is as follows:
Open Editor
Select File>Open As
Select Camera Raw (from the drop down menu at the foot of the window that has just opened)
Locate the jpeg file from your hard drive (or wherever)
Click Open and the ACR page will appear with your picture ready for processing
Proceed as you would with any other raw file
Good luck!