Topic awaiting preservation: File Types (Page 1 of 1)

Most people say that if you are saving a file, don't save it in JPG or GIF because you loose quality. Course! But what about the other formats like PNG and TIFF? The best non-final is PSD of course... Right? I'd like to use TIFF but I'm not sure that everyone can view it... And the trade violations on GIF files?

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"The Mystery of Life"
Vol. 841, Ch. 26
"All life begins with Nu and ends with Nu. This is the truth! This is my beleif! ...at least for now." - Chrono Trigger
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Depends on where the image is going.

If I remember correctly, TIFF is optimized for print.
PNG is optimized for web display, but unfortunately, IE6 doesn't support it properly, so you can forget about that.

quote:

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And the trade violations on GIF files?

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If you're referring to Unisys's patent on GIFs, it expired June 20, 2003. And even if it hadn't, it wouldn't have affected you.

I don't think I have had any porblems with PNGs in IE6.

What I meant was, that IE6 doesn't support the more advanced features of the PNG format, such as alpha transparency.

Ah good, no trademark violations. Second... Ok, Nix the PNG... and Tiff's for printing? Hmm... Whats the dissadvantages of JPGs? Isn't it something like everytime you save again as JPG you loose a bit of the file?

---
"The Mystery of Life"
Vol. 841, Ch. 26
"All life begins with Nu and ends with Nu. This is the truth! This is my beleif! ...at least for now." - Chrono Trigger
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Everytime you compress a JPEG, you lose more and more quality. Say I save it as quality 8 (or 80%). I lose 20% quality. If I open it, and save it again as 8, I lose 20% quality again... Of course, if you don't compress your JPEG, then no quality is lost.

If you want a quality image, your file size is going to be quite large, regardless of what file type it is, possibly with the exception of JPEG2000.

Ah, yes. JPG2000. What is that? A new version of JPG? Haven't seen it much or heard of it 'cept for on Adobe's website.

---
"The Mystery of Life"
Vol. 841, Ch. 26
"All life begins with Nu and ends with Nu. This is the truth! This is my beleif! ...at least for now." - Chrono Trigger
><>

tiff is a lossless format (or rather can be) that also supports layers.
gif is best suited to solid colors (horizontal transitions work best)
jpg is a lossy format, so every time you resave a jpg, (even at 100%) it still compresses the image some. It may not be real noticable at first but after many saves ,the image will degrade.

What i think it would be wise, is that if you intend to have a pic you will display in the web (or transport in floppys), is to have an original version of a file which may be a tifff or whatever you want, and for exhibition (or whatever) save a copy in jpg. That way, every change is made to the tiff, and then just save a new jpg.

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Alevice's Media Library

Thanks for the tips everyone... One last question... What other file types can Internet Explorer display?

---
"The Mystery of Life"
Vol. 841, Ch. 26
"All life begins with Nu and ends with Nu. This is the truth! This is my beleif! ...at least for now." - Chrono Trigger
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