Common Mistakes 2 of 6
File Mistakes
Renaming an extension instead of converting the file, assuming .jpg differs from .jpeg, repeatedly recompressing, or discarding the editable original.
Saving over the only source, re-exporting a recompressed JPEG repeatedly, trusting an extension, and shipping a thumbnail as production art all reduce recoverability. A filename such as 'final-final.jpg' also makes order-level version control difficult.
The most recoverable failure is a bad export when the editable source survives. The least recoverable is a bad export that replaced the only master. Protect the source, version the JPEG, inspect the actual saved file, and avoid repeated recompression. A very large byte count is not proof of quality; metadata or inefficient encoding can inflate a file without adding usable detail.