HEIC photo extension..default to jpeg please

HEIC is a very efficient format. But most viewing apps can't read it, yet. If you would prefer jpegs, there are two settings on the iPhone that control this.

Settings>Camera>Formats should be set to Most Compatible (instead of high efficiency)

Settings>Photos>Transfer should be set to Automatic (to automatically convert to jpg)

Even if pictures are stored internally as HEIC, Photos exports pictures as jpgs if you like. You can select as many as you want and choose "File>Export>Export xx Photos," and you can choose jpeg as your format.

As you've found, you can use preview to convert the image to jpg later if you need to. You just duplicate and save as jpeg. But this seems to be one at a time.

By the way, folks on this forum don't work for Apple, and saying something Apple does is "ridiculous" just won't make us feel guilty about it or anything. If you have suggestions for Apple, you can make your feelings known here:

Feedback - Photos - Apple

i've been 'forced' to change to Ventura 13.0.1

The user is never "forced" to upgrade. All you have to do is turn automatic updates off.

i hate upgrades, and this one is particularly frustrating; it seems all the easy tasks i used to complete are made difficult, or i have to go through '4 clicks' for tasks where i used to only have to do one. grrrrrr

Can't make a suggestion when we don't know what tasks you're talking about.

The HEIC isn't an acceptable format for most things i do, as i am sure you know.

No, we didn't know - until you told us.

have figured out to change an INDIVIDUAL photo from HEIC to jpeg; but doing that for EVERY photo is ridiculous.

in the same article it said i can make jpeg the default; but it didn't tell me how to do that.

And we're guessing again. In what app? What article are you referring to?