The "evidence" for "JPEG is good enough" is always the same: "I can't see any difference." Well, that's the point. JPEG (and MPEG which I'll get to) were about data reduction that didn't become visible to the majority of people. The data reduction is still there, though, and it'll nip you by your short hairs the minute you start trying to do much in the way of post processing on the data. 8 bits is not 14 bits. sRGB is not ProPhotoRGB. Fourier reduction of pixels to formula is data reduction. Lost data, lost data, lost data. You never get this data back, and some day you'll find that you want to make a change that requires it. Sure, most of us have learned how to patch over JPEG issues in post, but it's more work and there will always be things you can't do because the data just isn't there.
full article www.bythom.com (he will move it to the 2012 archives at the end of the week- Feb. 27 post)
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