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Have you recently started using Catalina (or big Sur)?
By the way, if you want more people to see your screenshots, please click the icon circled below to put them into your message as opposed to requiring people to download the images. Much easier for all.
Is this another issue with updated Bridge?
Hi Hannah,
Whew, LOTS of great questions. Let me see if I can get all this.
It's been a while since I was on Mojave so I can't remember right now if I saw JPG-ACR edits in the Finder or not. As far as how you can see them in Finder but not in Bridge, that is an indication that something is wrong. I suspect you should rebuild your Cache by going to Tools (menu) -> Cache -> Manage Cache... and check this setting
Let me know what happens.
Now, JPGs: if you look at a JPG in Bridge you will see the little "data" icon in the upper right corner letting you know that ACR has done adjustments. If they are not there, than that JPG does not have any adjustments. If you wish to share that JPG with others and see that there are adjustments, simply open the file (it will open in ACR first) than you can either save it out of ACR (look for the "share" icon in the upper right corner of ACR to the left of the Gear icon) or you can open it in PS (which does give you a lot more control as to how it's saved). Then resave it as a JPG if you plan on sharing it with other who do not have ACR or to save it to an on-line site.
Saving JPGs: High Compression = smaller size = degredation of the image. Low Compression = bigger size = less degredation. Two things control storage size of JPG: resolution and compression. If you decrease the size of an image by half (say 4000 pixels wide to 2000 pixels wide) you will decrease the storage size by 75%. If it's a JPG, then increasing compression will also make it smaller. It is better to do the size of the image than compression but compression down to 70% is usually just fine. But take that same image and re-save it at 70% it will have more degredation than the first save. Keep on going and you'll end up with crud.
BTW, the change in resolution size mentioned above is the same for ALL kinds of images, not jsut JPG.
Now, why use NEF versus jpg = More options to get a better image.
A JPG can only be an 8-bit image. That's it. Depending on the kind of camera you have, a raw image can easily be 12-16 bits. That means it contains more data. This data can be higher depth in light and dark areas as well as a greater color gamut. More data can easily be demonstrated by looking at a region that looks blown out in a jpg. Try to recover more data by pushing the "Highlights" slider all the way to the left. Now take the NEF file of the same image and do the same thing. Do you see things that were never recovered in the JPG.
Another thing about raw images is that you cannot save a raw image. That's big and important. To see the value of that, take one of your JPG images and convert it into a bland and white image. Now save it. Now open that image and convert it back to color. You can't because you locked in that change. Now take a raw image, open it and convert it into color. Now click Done in ACR's window (notice there's no Save option). Now open that image, now convert it back to color. Easy Peasy.
One other thing to be aware of is that PS does not know what to do with the date in a raw file. For PS to see a raw image it need to be converted into a format for PS to deal with. Once converted, what you do with that file can be considered "an interpretation" of that file. But since you cannot bake in that interpretation, only save it out to PS (where then you can save it out as a psd, tif, or jpg). This means that at any time you can go back to the same image and interpret it in an infinite number of ways. With a JPG, one you save it, that interpretation is baked into the file and cannot be changed.
If you're not doing it yet, once you fully embrace working with raw images, you'll never take a jpg again.
This is too long already, I'll let you soak this in and think about it. Feel free to ask more questions.
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