Choosing a Format

Choosing a format for your pictures can be a daunting task. With all of the available options, it can be confusing to decide which one is best. We hope to help clarify the differences and benefits of each format so that you can make an informed decision.

Several formats are available such as BMP, JPEG, GIF, and TIFF. Most photographers and collectors choose either TIFF or JPEG due to the versatility and quality of those two file types. GIF and BMP can be good for some applications, but do not handle the concentration and range of colors found in most pictures very well.

Both JPEG and TIFF formats are very good and are supported by most photo editing and photo viewing programs. We will go through the pros and cons of both JPEG and TIFF formats for you so that you can make a clear, educated choice.

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JPEG is the most commonly used format in digital photographic images. JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. This group was formed in 1986 and determines the standards for the JPEG format. JPEGs are one of the most supported formats. Almost anything that will read digital pictures is able to display JPEGs, even your DVD player.

JPEGs are very popular for websites and screen viewing because they can be compressed to a small enough size that they can be viewed easily and still maintain their full color. A JPEG usually uses 24-bit color, which means that it shows 16 million possible colors (more than the human eye can even decipher) in the average picture. The more possible colors available makes it possible for a picture to have shades, transitions, and small details. Without the shades, transitions, and small details, your average picture would look cartoonish.

JPEG compresses your images so they are a smaller file size making them easier to work with and store. The down side to the compression is that your picture loses information and quality during editing and saving. The most common compression method is called “lossy compression”. During lossy compression, some of visual quality is lost in the process and cannot be restored. This is not bad for web pictures or screen viewing since the human eye cannot detect most of the loss on a screen, but it does make pictures fuzzy when printed. There are variations on the standard baseline JPEG compression that are lossless, but these are not yet widely supported.

The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing you to choose your acceptable level of tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10 to 1 compression with little perceivable loss in image quality. Different programs often use numbers to describe the JPEG compression, but these numbers are not really very useful since they vary from program to program. The standard compression rates are 1-12 or 1-100, but a compression level of 6 in one program might give you the same results as an 8 in another program. Usually a JPEG saved at 10-12 or 80-100 compression won’t have any visible quality loss in normal viewing applications. If you take the same picture and edit it then save it over and over, it will deteriorate just a little each time until eventually it will be noticeable to the human eye.

If you want to compress a JPEG, the easiest way is to open the picture and compress it until you notice unpleasant visual effects from the compression. When you get to that point, you know you have gone too far down in the compression. JPEG compression is always a trade off between file size and image quality.

Overall, JPEG is a good format because it supports plenty of color and detail, can be viewed and opened in almost all viewing software, and can be a relatively small file size.

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TIFF is popular among archivers and photographers because it retains more information while editing and saving unlike a JPEG. TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format.

TIFF images are 24-bit images displaying millions of colors and showing all the details and shades of your photos.

The best reason for using TIFF images is that they don’t lose information when you edit them and save them. They are popular with very picky professional photographers because they are not going to lose any of the finest details in their high quality shots. TIFFs are also popular with professional archivers because they can store the photographs and be sure they won’t lose info when they are opened and edited and resaved.

The down side to TIFF images is that they are not supported in as many viewers and programs as JPEGs. TIFF images can’t be compressed as JPEGs making them problematic for viewing on the web. Many viewers and slower internet connections have trouble downloading and displaying larger picture files.

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TIFF is usually used for more serious storage and archiving purposes and JPEGs for viewing and more casual use. If your goal with your pictures is to share them with all of your friends and family, you will probably want to use JPEG. On the other hand, if your goal is to save high quality files for printing, you will probably want to use TIFF.