LR vs PhotoShop JPEG Quality Setting

When exporting a JPEG file from LR one must specify the "quality" on a scale of 0-100; PhotoShop uses a 0-12 scale. How are these scales related? Is it linear, of something more complicated?

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Jpeg Quality setting

I have tryed to find a reasonable value for jpeg quality setting when exporting images for use like sending to a lab for printing.
Comparing the Photoshop scale of 0-12 with the Lightroom scale of 0-100 on some typical images I found the following:
PS 6 is similar to LR 50
PS 7 similar to LR 60
PS 8 similar to LR 65 (62-69 gives same value)
PS 9 similar to LR 75 (70-76 gives same value)
PS 10 similar to LR 80 (77-84 gives same value)
PS 11 similar to LR 90 (85-92 gives same value)
PS 12 similar to LR 100 (93-100 gives same value)
Choosing "max" from the dialog in PS results in quality 10 (unless changed manually to 11 or 12), the value I normally use when converting to jpeg, and this seems to equal the value 80 in LR. I noted that the scale in LR is not linear, the resulting file sizes changes in a limited number of steps.
My conclusion from the test is that a setting of 80 in LR should be sufficient for all practical purposes when exporting a jpeg file (assuming that there is no significant difference between PS quality 10-12 for a file that is "final" and need no more adjustments).
Any views on "normal" setting of jpeg quality setting in LR for various purposes?
Sigge

To me it would depend on the purpose. I do a lot of printing at home, so I don't use jpegs for that. But, for high quality prints done externally, I believe a lot of people resize their files in Photoshop and then sharpen for the print job, then save either to jpeg or tiff. Tiff is the safest because it avoids the lossy compression of a jpeg. If your resize is successful and you need to save to jpeg, then I imagine the highest quality setting would be desirable.
For the web, you would also need to resize, using a resolution of 72 ppi, to fit your desired display size, then sharpen, then save the image. Again, is there a reason to not use the highest quality when saving a web image? Speed of display, I suppose. But there's a tradeoff.
I use PBase as a public web gallery and they have a nifty feature: you upload a file and they create three display sizes. When they're done you can tell them to delete the original. When I do that I save jpegs in LR to 80 -- it makes for faster uploading.
Tony

Jpeg quality setting, noise settings and artifacts

I am having difficulty having work accepted by iStock - even at full size at 100% jpe
g export, there is still some. I have cut way back on all enhancements.
I would like some advice to expoering clean images and where i find jpeg setings - or are their similar ones to those in CS5. I have tried saving for web in CS% to no avail. I do get some accepted - about 30% and i have started to use a program called deNoise from Topaz - would appreciate suggestions on all the baove.
Thanks
Greg Summers

Aren't these stock agencies a little paranoid about noise?
Lightroom 3 images may look a little noisier than LR2's at the same slider values. So you might need to add a little more luma noise than before.
As for Jpeg quality settings, read this excellent analysis: http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/jpeg-quality

RAW + JPEG Quality setting. Canon 5DII. 2 JPEGs downloads.

I am using PSE 7. ACR 5.6 installed. Camera is set for RAW+JPEG but download is only 2 JPEGS. I have read the plug-in download and install instructions several times and all that I am able to think of is ACR need to be installed in two locations.
Now what?
Bob AZ

Barbara
Thanks for the very helpful reply. I have been using Canon since 2005 and all has really been well. I could comment further but it would be thread drifting
I usually shoot only RAW and many images at a time. 250+. Sometimes I would like RAW files/images and JPEGs of each image. Usually maybe three times a year. This last time I was doing 50 some portraits with RAW for portraits and JPEGS for a directory. Imagine my surprise when the download was all JPEGS. I usually download from my Canon, a 5DII now, using My Computer with no problems. Been doing it since day one. Never a problem. Reshoot would have been a real inconvenience for lots of folks. I had recently sent my camera and lenses in for maintenance and have the lenses calibrated to the body. First thought was the camera Firmware Update so I checked the Adobe Camera Raw site for updates and updated ACW to 5.6. Three times I tried it to no avail. Nothing I tried would work. I did stumble through the portraits with acceptable success but I am a firm believer in RAW so in my quest for a solution I tried the Canon Forum and now the Adobe Forum. I also did pull the CompactFlash card from the camera and verified that both RAW and JPEG files are on the card using My Computer.
Which Windows System Utility do you suggest?
Bob AZ

LR JPEG compression vs. Photoshop JPEG compression

I haven't found any documentation of the meaning of the 0 - 100% JPEG compression value in LR's (v1 or v2) Export File window. And the default value of 100% is overkill and results in huge files. At least I'm familiar with the Photoshop's 0-12 JPEG quality scale with associated quality names: Low, Medium, High, and Maximum.
Via trial and error, I have found that LR has the same 13 quality levels as Photoshop and gives the same results, they are just mapped on a 0 - 100% scale. This also means that changing a few percent may not make any change at all, since a quality change only happens about every 7 percent.
For those who might find it useful, here is a table of the mappings:
The first column is the Photoshop compression number and name; the second column in the range of Lightroom percentages that will give the same results.
0-Low 0-7%
1-Low 8-15%
2-Low 16-23%
3-Low 24-30%
4-Low 31-38%
5-Med 39-46%
6-Med 47-53%
7-Med 54-61%
8-High 62-69%
9-High 70-76%
10-Max 77-84%
11-Max 85-91%
12-Max 92-100%

I looked at this again using PS's 'Baseline Standard' JPEG format option instead of 'Baseline Optimized. LR does not provide the format options Standard, Optimized, and Progressive, but appears to use 'Baseline Standard.' The equivalent compression level LR file size is within 16KB of PS's file size, which is probably due to slight differences in in the file metadata.
This pretty much confirms LR and PS use the same 'Baseline Standard' JPEG compression algorithms. The PS level 7 reduced quality is also seen at LR's level 54-61 JPEG Quality setting. Jeffrey Friedel mentions this in his analysis of LR's JPEG Quality settings and a reply from Brian Tao:
http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/jpeg-quality
Jeffrey Friedel's comment:
One thing I find interesting (but don't understand) is that in the first example, the difference in file size between the 47〜53 quality and 54〜61 quality is considerable (49k to 66k bytes), while in the second example, the the same two levels of quality produces essentially the same file size. There seems to be some kind of switch in compression algorithm once Lightroom is at a quality setting of 54 or above that puts the emphasis on encoding the easily-discernible smooth gradients of the sunset example, and if they are lacking in the image, as with the reed-window-shade example, the attempt at extra quality fails, and the file size does not increase. That's my guess, but it's just a guess.
Brian Tao's Reply:
This is due to the downsampling (basically, a reduction in resolution) of one or more of the image channels before passing it to the actual compression routine. Human vision is much more sensitive to changes in luminance (brightness) than chrominance (colour). JPEG takes advantage of this by reducing the amount of colour information stored in the image in order to achieve higher compression ratios. Because it is colour and not brightness that is sacrificed, this is called “chroma subsampling”. Look up that term in Wikipedia for a far better and more detailed description than I can provide here.
In a nutshell, Adobe products will use either a 4:4:4 subsampling (which is no subsampling at all, and thus full resolution) or 4:2:0 subsampling (both red and blue channels are reduced to one-quarter resolution before compression). There is no switch to specify the amount of subsampling to use. In Photoshop, the change from 4:2:0 to 4:4:4 happens between quality 6 and 7. In Photoshop’s Save For Web, it happens between quality 50 and 51. In Lightroom, you already noticed that something unexpected happens between 47-53 quality and 54-61 quality. Guess what levels those correspond to in Photoshop? 6 and 7… exactly as expected.
You can very easily demonstrate this by creating a worst-case scenario of JPEG chroma subsampling. Create a small image in Photoshop with a pure blue (RGB = 0,0,255) background. Now type in some pure red text (RGB = 255,0,0). For maximum effect, turn off anti-aliasing, so each pixel is either full on red or full on blue. Zoom in to 500% or so for a clear view of the pixels. Now save the image as a JPEG. With the JPEG quality dialog visible, you will see a real-time preview of the effects of JPEG compression. Start at 12, and work your way down to 0, one step at a time. Watch what happens when you go from 7 to 6. You can do the same with Save For Web and with Lightroom to confirm where they switch from 4:4:4 to 4:2:0.
The file size discrepancy is more noticeable in the sunset shot because most of the information (relatively speaking) is needed to encode the gradual change in chrominance values. There is virtually no luminance detail to worry about, except around the silhouette of the bird. But in the photo of the reed window shades, the fine detail and texture and lack of colour result in practically no difference going from 4:4:4 and 4:2:0.
Because of this hidden (and inaccessble) switch, I have been recommending that to be safe, one should never go below quality 7 in Photoshop, or 51 in Save For Web. In Lightroom, this corresponds to quality 54.
Hope this helps.

Decreasing JPEG quality sometimes works

I've done about a hundred flash files with imported jpegs and
have had no trouble getting the global jpeg quality setting to
affect them. Now I've got a similar project of ten fla files that a
contractor did and I can't get the Jpeg quality setting to affect
the published files.
The point is that I know this setting can have an effect on
imported jpeg bitmaps because I've done it so many times now.
Now, in my own projects, all the jpeg bitmaps are set to "use
document default quality" and the global setting affects them. The
contractor's projects have the same settings but the global setting
has no effect.
The one thing I'm suspicious of is that her bitmap properties
point to originals that are on her computer, not mine. Could the
fact that her sources are unavailable have anything to do with
this?
Rob Mack

Okay, here's the answer. My previous several thousand jpeg
images had been saved with the progressive switch turned on.
Evidently, Flash compresses bitmaps in non-progressive jpeg
format. If the asset is already in this format then flash defaults
to using the original file as is. However, if the jpeg asset is in
progressive format then Flash has to recompress it.
The effect is that progressive jpeg files can be affected by
the project's global jpeg quality settings but non-porgressive
jpegs can't be affected by the settings.
How this affects a user depends on what you want to do. In my
case I'm doing dozens and dozens of files that are much like slide
shows and it's most convenient to adjust compression in the project
settings to get the file size down. For most other users, they've
gone to a bit of trouble to get a jpeg image "just right" and don't
want the global setting to affect it. In most users cases they'd
want to save non-progressive jpegs, in fact since the project
setting will skip them this is the better way to go when mixing
jpeg and png bitmaps.
For someone in my position where you need to be able to
recompress the bitmaps, you either save jpegs with progressive
switched on or you save the bitmaps in PNG format. Overall, using
PNG will probably cause less overall image damage but it increases
your storage requirements quite a bit.
So, what if you saved the jpegs in the wrong format? Maybe
the best choice would be to go back to photoshop and set up a batch
action to resave everything with Progressive on or off. Then in the
FLA file you can select all the bitmaps and update them in bulk.
Rob Mack

Flash CS4 Jpeg Quality publishing problem

Hi there I'm trying to publish a .psd or .png that animates, but when I go to change the Jpeg Quality settings to change it to anything other than the 80% it's set to it makes the animated picture disappear when viewing the swf. (I'll eventually be doing this to many animated pictures and will need to use the global jpeg quality setting)
Can anyone try and open my .fla file and see if they can change the jpeg settings and get it to work, then I'll know that I'll probably have to reinstall Flash CS4.
Thanks in advance.

I encountered the same problem when changing the quality setting in the Publish Settings from the file menu. I was able to get it to work by changing the quality setting in the library. I can't explain the problem. Have you tried, (if your project allows you) to use a PNG instead of a PSD image?

Photoshop CS4 jpeg quality default

Quality default when saving a jpg picture was always 12/maximum in my CS4. (That was great!) Suddenly it switched to 5/medium for NO reason! And I'm working on hundred of pictures - I really don't want to change it manually each time, but it seems to be impossible to change default settings for that (as long as it does not change just for fun like it did!)
Can someone PLEEEEAAASE help me, before I go completely crazy! It's much too expensive to waste my time like that...
For anyone who can solve my problem: THOUSAND thanks in advance!
Greetings Michael

That would say that if Photoshop was the app that saved a JPEG in the first place, that it must put the quality setting in the file somewhere, so that it will use that as the default the next time. I suspected it might be doing that (which is why I wrote "I could be wrong" i my first post) but wasn't sure as I have not tried to analyze the default quality setting before.
But I just tested it and this seems to be the algorithm:
1. If you open a JPEG saved by some other means (e.g., an out-of-camera JPEG or from another app) Photoshop appears to default to the last setting at which you saved any prior JPEG from Photoshop .
2. If you open a JPEG that was saved by Photoshop, it will read in the quality setting from the EXIF information in that file somewhere and use that as the default for the next File - Save As (and also plain File - Save apparently).
-Noel

Creating Pdf in Photoshop CS6 - blurry at maximum quality setting

Hi,
I just tried to create Pdf.
I used high quality jpegs and chose a 100% quality setting and at 300 dpi.
I also chose the same pixel dimensions as the original documents.
But the outcome is blurry - as if the original had been highly compressed. The sum of the sizes of all files is about 40% larger than the final pdf file.
How can I get rid of this compression and create a pdf document whose pages are as sharp and high quality as the original?

> pdf inflated the orginal file size by the factor 10
I should have warned you about that, Uncheck "Preserve Photoshop editing capabilities"
this extra step should look pretty good and make the doc even smaller:
Do not Downsample
Compression: JPG
Image Quality: High or Max

I have scanned photos using an Epson V500 scanner set to jpeg format using the least compression (highest quality) setting. When I try to import the scanned jpegs into iPhoto I get an error message saying "The file is an unrecognized format." But if I

I have scanned photos using an Epson V500 scanner set to scan using jpeg format at the highest quality (least compression) setting. When I try to import the scanned jpegs into iPhoto, I get an error message from iPhoto saying "The file is an unrecognized format." But if I reduce the quality setting on the Epson scanner to just slightly below highest quality, the images import into iPhoto just fine. Why won't iPhoto accept jpegs scanned at the highest quality setting? Wondering?

What scanner format settings dis you use? Are these color photos? If they are B/W did you scan as grayscale images? That could be the problem.
Are you able to open them with Preview? If so do a Save As, select full quality and save as a jpeg with a new file name. See if that file will import and work as intended.
OT

Setting default JPEG quality in Preview Export

Does anyone happen to know how to change the default quality setting of the JPEG export in Preview? I pretty much always need it to be best, and it's a little bit of a pain to have to adjust it from medium every time...

Hi can you navigate to the Start menu and then into HP and the HP Solution Center? From within that, select settings (probably on the lower right side of the HP Solution Center screen. In settings, click on Printer Settings where you can change the defaults for your printer.
I am an HP employee.
Feel free to provide Kudos if I have helped you!

'Maximum' Quality Setting for Previews

Dear Adobe,
Aside from 'Low', 'Medium', and 'High' settings for standard-size previews, please add a 'Maximum' quality setting (equivalent to 10-12 quality setting for JPEGs in Photoshop).
As standard previews are generated for imported images or for new edits on images already in Lightroom, sometimes low quality JPEG previews are generated. These previews exhibit color banding & macroblocking artifacts typical of JPEG files (especially in dark areas). Since these previews are used in the Library, Slideshow, Print, and Web modules, it's pretty darn annoying & distracting to stare at low-quality renditions of our images. Switch to Develop module, and a fresh new image is rendered on screen; therefore, these JPEG preview artifacts are not visible in the 'Develop' module.
Two fixes to this problem:
1.) Add a 'Maximum' quality setting for previews that Lightroom generates
2.) Fix it the Aperture, Bridge, iPhoto, 'every-other-software', and your own 'Develop' module way: display the precached preview first, while rending a fresh view of the image in the background... display that when it's ready.
Here's a forum where I've discussed this previously:
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?128@@.3bc33a73
Here are examples of the low-quality previews generated by Lightroom (when 1680 'High' setting is used for previews):
http://web.mac.com/rishisanyal/iWeb/Homepage/Macroblocking.jpg
http://web.mac.com/rishisanyal/iWeb/Homepage/Library.jpg
http://web.mac.com/rishisanyal/iWeb/Homepage/Library_vs_Develop.jpg
And if you are using a well calibrated monitor, then look at the macroblocking in the black wool coat in this image (please use a color managed viewer, else the coat will just look black and you won't see the blocking):
http://web.mac.com/rishisanyal/iWeb/Homepage/Lightroom_JPEGblocking.jpg
We photographers have discerning eyes. It's painful to see this terrible renditions of our precious images... and to have to switch over to the 'Develop' module *just* to get a high-quality rendition of our image? And meanwhile watch slideshows with low-quality versions (previews) of our images?
Sounds pretty unacceptable to me.

So, I'm pretty much convinced now that the problem with low-quality LR previews seems to be mostly isolated to the previews that LR generates after you make edits in the 'Develop' module.
Upon first import, this image looked fine in the 'Library' & 'Slideshow' modules. After making some edits (color, tone, etc.) in the 'Develop' module, I ended up getting this hideous preview in the 'Library' & 'Slideshow' modules:
http://web.mac.com/rishisanyal/Lightroom/07-0310_BandingBlocking.jpg
You people with LCDs will be able to see the JPEG artifacts better than those with CRTs, since LCDs tend to be sharper.
So, the obvious question is this:
Does LR, when *re-generating* previews for edited images, ignore the quality-setting for JPEG previews (which I have set to 'high')??

Export JPEG quality must be chosen twice

Mac OS X, Lightroom 1.4.1: In Library mode, choose export, choose JPEG and quality. Then photo is opened in Photoshop and once again you have to choose jpeg quality. OK with only a few photos, but tiresome when exporting many. Is it possible only having to choose jpeg quality once (in Lightroom).

The High setting gives you the same file size as the original file was. The medium setting results is aboutg a 50% file size reduction. The max selection greatly increases the file size but I'm not sure it increase the image quality to any noticable degree.
The image I tested resulted in these file sizes sizes: Original 1.4MB, High 1.4MB, Medium 774KB, Small, 402KB and Maximum, 4.6 MB. The pixel dimension of the photo remained the same in all files.
Personally I couldn't see much difference between all of them but them my eyes are on the down side of the "hill". This website gives some interesting insight into jpeg compression: JPEG
OT

Achieving lossless JPEG quality?

What is the best way to achieve lossless JPEG quality in Photoshop? Is setting the quality of the file to "maximum" essentially lossless? I've been using .png files a lot more, but some of my clients still don't welcome that format. Thanks!

Lossless JPEG is a bit of a misnomer. It is part of the original JPEG standard (Annex H to CCITT Recommendation T.81), but it does not use the compression technique (DCT compression) that is the primary feature of JPEG, often referred to as JPEG compression. Instead it uses either Hoffmann or arithmetic coding. It also can be used for 16-bit image data, unlike the lossy JPEG format. I'm not sure what the point was to it, given that there are other lossless compressed and non-compressed formats, such as TIFF. It has rarely been implemented, probably for that very reason. According to the
Wikipedia entry for Lossless JPEG, it has been used in some medical imaging applications and is used in, of all things, DNG and some cameras' RAW formats (perhaps the encoding technique is used, rather than the image format). There two other techniques mentioned there: JPEG-2000, mentioned above, and JPEG-LS, which is nearly lossless.

Iphoto says Unrecognizable format when importing a photoshop JPEG RGB

Hi there, I've tried several times to import my adobe photoshop jpeg files into iphoto. My goal here is to simply burn my jpegs on to a cd and to do that I'm trying to import them into iphoto to burn them. However, my adobe photoshop jpegs won't import. Other threads mention that the files should be RGB and I ensured that they were in photoshop but it still shows that my jpegs are unrecognizable formats. I feel like I'm ALMOST there and missing one piece to be able to import them successfully. Something else to mention is that I don't NEED them to be Adobe photoshop jpegs. I just want them to be normal jpegs. I feel like is what's preventing them from importing into iphoto. Any thoughts? Thanks for any help!

Homelessmd wrote:
I've tried your suggestion. It doesn't work. I can only access a modified Photoshop picture through finder and its in a "modified" folder by year. I've been trying all sorts of "tricks" and the only one that seems to work is to save the photoshop file to a separate folder within the "Pictures" folder, and then to import the file into iphoto.
That is correct - you must Never make any changes to the contents of the iPhoto library including saving photos to it - all photos MUST be imported into iPhoto
It's a frustrating additional step and for anyone that does multiple changes to a file in Photoshop, this can end up being a pain in the rear.
You can import the original photo to iPhoto and set PS as the editor for iPhoto - edit and save (not save as) and the edited photo will be properly returned to iPhoto
LN

LR vs PhotoShop JPEG Quality Setting

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