UNDOING edited photos

Hi!
Is there any way I can return an edited photo back to its original just
RAW state? I have abou 100 photos that look worse than when I started
editing them. And the more I try to make them look good, the worse they
look. I'm sure by now that the quality of the photo has been diminshed.
I'd like to start all over, and reduce the size as well, for emailing
before saving.

I use Digital Image Pro 10.0 and/or Photo Shop Elements 2.0.

ThanX Mike

writes:

Hi!
Is there any way I can return an edited photo back to its original just
RAW state? I have abou 100 photos that look worse than when I started
editing them. And the more I try to make them look good, the worse they
look. I'm sure by now that the quality of the photo has been diminshed.
I'd like to start all over, and reduce the size as well, for emailing
before saving.

I use Digital Image Pro 10.0 and/or Photo Shop Elements 2.0.

Unless you saved the originals in a separate directory/backup media (or the
program makes a backup copy). This is why it is standard advice to always save
your originals (whether they are JPG, TIFF, or RAW files), and only work on a
copy of the file.

--
Michael Meissner
email:
http://www.the-meissners.org

Is there any way I can return an edited photo back to its original

No, once you have saved the file you have lost the original.

wrote:


Hi!
Is there any way I can return an edited photo back to its original just
RAW state? I have abou 100 photos that look worse than when I started
editing them. And the more I try to make them look good, the worse they
look. I'm sure by now that the quality of the photo has been diminshed.
I'd like to start all over, and reduce the size as well, for emailing
before saving.

I use Digital Image Pro 10.0 and/or Photo Shop Elements 2.0.

Only if you saved it in a software-native format that includes undo
information. Otherwise, if you overwrote the original file, you're hooped.

This is why you ALWAYS work on a COPY.

Is there any way I can return an edited photo back to its original

No, once you have saved the file you have lost the original.


Hi...

That's *unless* you were wise enough to save the changed
version with a different name; hence keeping the original.

Hopefully as the OP will do in the future

Ken

I always use "Save As" and give my edited files an appropriate name kinda
telling me what I did. As long as you use Save As, and don't use the name
of your original file, you'll always have it to go back to.

BTW, you won't be the first or last person to do this. :-)

Michael Meissner commented courteously ...

Unless you saved the originals in a separate
directory/backup media (or the program makes
a backup copy). This is why it is standard
advice to always save your originals (whether
they are JPG, TIFF, or RAW files),and only
work on a copy of the file.

I had to learn this valuable object lesson the hard way: I
didn't originallysave my Fuji 4900 unedited images after
I'd completed the picture. A couple years later, then on
PSP 8 with much higher functionality, I learned many new
ways to improve on my 2001-2002 car show and museum pics.

Sadly, I had to settle for re-editing my "finished" 1280 x
960 JPEGs. That worked OK, but did introduce some image
damage, plus I'd have been much better off starting from
the original, re-cropping, and applying more advanced
photo editing techniques.

Live and learn. It is useful to gently remind people newer
to digital photography, particularly those who want to
shoot and save in JPEG, as I do to always save the
original and always work with a copy.

Neither my Fuji 4900 or Nikon 5700 support TIFF. The 5700
does NEF, but that's overkill for my needs. I do quite
well, within my own limited self-imposed restrictions.
with JPEG "fine".

--
ATM, aka Jerry

In article , usenetMAPS123@comcast
..net says...

Michael Meissner commented courteously ...

Unless you saved the originals in a separate
directory/backup media (or the program makes
a backup copy). This is why it is standard
advice to always save your originals (whether
they are JPG, TIFF, or RAW files),and only
work on a copy of the file.

I had to learn this valuable object lesson the hard way: I
didn't originallysave my Fuji 4900 unedited images after
I'd completed the picture. A couple years later, then on
PSP 8 with much higher functionality, I learned many new
ways to improve on my 2001-2002 car show and museum pics.

Sadly, I had to settle for re-editing my "finished" 1280 x
960 JPEGs. That worked OK, but did introduce some image
damage, plus I'd have been much better off starting from
the original, re-cropping, and applying more advanced
photo editing techniques.

Live and learn. It is useful to gently remind people newer
to digital photography, particularly those who want to
shoot and save in JPEG, as I do to always save the
original and always work with a copy.

Neither my Fuji 4900 or Nikon 5700 support TIFF. The 5700
does NEF, but that's overkill for my needs. I do quite
well, within my own limited self-imposed restrictions.
with JPEG "fine".

--
ATM, aka Jerry

Sorry to hear about the lesson learned, but then we all find a few of those
along the way.

As for your 5700, I believe that it will shoot TIFFs just fine. I do not know
about the Fuji, however.

Hunt

Sheldon wrote:
Is there any way I can return an edited photo back to its original

No, once you have saved the file you have lost the original.


Hi...

That's *unless* you were wise enough to save the changed
version with a different name; hence keeping the original.

Hopefully as the OP will do in the future

Ken

I always use "Save As" and give my edited files an appropriate name kinda
telling me what I did. As long as you use Save As, and don't use the name
of your original file, you'll always have it to go back to.

BTW, you won't be the first or last person to do this. :-)

I go even further. I move the images from the camera to
the computer and then I write the images to a CD (actually
two CD's, but I'm paranoid).

Only *then* do I start messing with the images and I too
try to rename them so as not to overwrite the copy on
disk.

But if I do, I have the CD backup.

---- Paul J. Gans

wrote:

Hi!
Is there any way I can return an edited photo back to its original just
RAW state? I have abou 100 photos that look worse than when I started
editing them. And the more I try to make them look good, the worse they
look. I'm sure by now that the quality of the photo has been diminshed.
I'd like to start all over, and reduce the size as well, for emailing
before saving.

I use Digital Image Pro 10.0 and/or Photo Shop Elements 2.0.

ThanX Mike

As others have said, if you overwrote your original files then there's
no chance of backtracking.

However, what I do to avoid accidents (it's all too easy to hit 'save'
instead of 'save as' - and there goes your original file) is,
immediately after uploading the images to the HDD I jump into PowerDesk
(or Windows Explorer), find the folder with the new files, hit 'Ctrl-A'
to select all the files, then right-click on one of them, choose
'properties', tick the box marked 'Read only', and click 'Apply', 'Ok'.

Now all the original files are write-protected, and if you inadvertently
try to overwrite, the computer will politely inform you that you can't
do that. Peace of mind for me.

BTW, write-protecting a file does not prevent it from being copied, so
you can still back-up your images - and the backups will also be
write-protected.

Colin

PS: If you later wish to delete files, you will have to un-tick the
"Read Only' box first.

It would be nice if cameras had a "read only" mode, that it
automatically applied to images when you take the picture.

Mark