29. JPEG, TIFF, RAW, PNG picture files. Easy to understand?
A brief report as follows for Daniel whom I hope can show some interest in digital photography.
I wish I had come across this easy to understand article earlier. I wasted 2 years using jpeg and getting poor image quality.
Source: PC World Aug 2006, pg 132.
Digital photography skill is very interesting and useful but few young men in their early twenties are interested in learning more. .
1. JPEG. Uses less disc storage space. Portable. Every photo editing or viewing software can read it. Image quality is lost everytime you edit and the file as .jpeg. Hence it is called "lossy" compression. More times you make changes, poorer the quality. So, save the JPEG file at the lowest compression level (i.e. at the highest image quality.)
2. TIFF. Files are larger (need more storage space) than Jpeg. But image quality is not affected when you create, edit or save a TIFF file. Hence it is called "lossless" compression.
For best quality, save shots as TIFF files all the way even if you make changes. Or you can save at the best JPEG quality. Then after editing once on your PC, save as TIFF files. You lose quality only on the first editing.
However you need to save a copy of the TIFF as a JPEG file if you want to e-mail or place it on the web, as the TIFF format is not universal.
3. RAW. Best quality. Lossless compression. Uses most disc storage space. NO loss of image quality as TIFF. It has 12 bits of colour per pixel compared to 8 bits for JPEG and TIFF. The camera does not adjust for any white balance, sharpening or any other effects. It is an unprocessed source file. You can't save your changes to RAW files. Keep 2 copies. Original RAW and edited JPEG or TIFF file. RAW files are handled differently in various camera brands. Nikon calls it "NEF". Canon calls it "CRW" and "CR2"
4. PNG. The alternative format. Used by Macs and nearly all browsers can open them. . Photoshop's PSD images is also "lossless". However, you need to save the files as JPEGS to share them as most are proprietary.
In conclusion, save as TIFF. Edit once as JPEG. Save as TIFF if you want to publish the pictures in books. Otherwise, use jpeg for internet posting.
I wish I had come across this easy to understand article earlier. I wasted 2 years using jpeg and getting poor image quality.
Source: PC World Aug 2006, pg 132.
Digital photography skill is very interesting and useful but few young men in their early twenties are interested in learning more. .
1. JPEG. Uses less disc storage space. Portable. Every photo editing or viewing software can read it. Image quality is lost everytime you edit and the file as .jpeg. Hence it is called "lossy" compression. More times you make changes, poorer the quality. So, save the JPEG file at the lowest compression level (i.e. at the highest image quality.)
2. TIFF. Files are larger (need more storage space) than Jpeg. But image quality is not affected when you create, edit or save a TIFF file. Hence it is called "lossless" compression.
For best quality, save shots as TIFF files all the way even if you make changes. Or you can save at the best JPEG quality. Then after editing once on your PC, save as TIFF files. You lose quality only on the first editing.
However you need to save a copy of the TIFF as a JPEG file if you want to e-mail or place it on the web, as the TIFF format is not universal.
3. RAW. Best quality. Lossless compression. Uses most disc storage space. NO loss of image quality as TIFF. It has 12 bits of colour per pixel compared to 8 bits for JPEG and TIFF. The camera does not adjust for any white balance, sharpening or any other effects. It is an unprocessed source file. You can't save your changes to RAW files. Keep 2 copies. Original RAW and edited JPEG or TIFF file. RAW files are handled differently in various camera brands. Nikon calls it "NEF". Canon calls it "CRW" and "CR2"
4. PNG. The alternative format. Used by Macs and nearly all browsers can open them. . Photoshop's PSD images is also "lossless". However, you need to save the files as JPEGS to share them as most are proprietary.
In conclusion, save as TIFF. Edit once as JPEG. Save as TIFF if you want to publish the pictures in books. Otherwise, use jpeg for internet posting.
posted by Photography by Sing Kong Yuen | 10:10 PM
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