Quote Originally Posted by alanstancliff View Post
What do you mean by referring to your brain as "little brain"? Your questions show that you're plenty bright enough to ask a lot of questions and analyze. No one can count that as stupid.

Try this:
  1. Open one of your "negatives," i.e., a JPEG
  2. Immediately go to FILE and click on that
  3. Then click on the SAVE AS option from the drop-down list
  4. A dialog comes up with two boxes you can enter text in, FILE NAME and SAVE AS FILE TYPE. Click on the drop down next to FILE TYPE.
  5. Select PSPIMAGE or PSP (or any other lossless format)

You have just saved the file without disturbing the original JPEG. Do that every time you open the original JPEG without fail. Do not save it as a JPEG with the same name.

After you have finished tarting up the photo, you can export it or save it as a JPEG, but use a different name than the original "negative's" name.

Give us a holler if you need more clarification.
Thank you, Alan. You're very kind. I'm sure my brain is pretty much the same size it's been for the past several decades. About its density, I'm not as confident. I think there may be bubbles of emptiness forming.

But I very much appreciate that step-by-step approach you've provided in your reply. It works very well in helping me master the concept and the operation when I can go through the motions.

One more quality of understanding control check: I could open the negative jpeg file, choose "Save As" and make a second jpeg with a different name, and there would be no loss between the first jpeg and the second. The loss comes from re-saving the first or any subsequent jpeg file, as opposed to saving a copy of it. I think that I've got that right, now.

In fact, I have "Save As" as a permanent tool bar option. That's exactly what I use when I am switching a file from one format to another.

So now that it seems like I'm getting squared away on the lossy vs loss-less formats, I'm going to try to tackle the issue of resolution and resizing images for posting on Internet forums. But first I want to do a little homework so that I ask good questions, not silly ones.

Many thanks to you, Alan, and everyone here who's been so patient and generous in helping me learn.