THE THINGS I DO…

I just gave a workshop about digital photography and there’s still some confusion out there about image file formats available in-camera. I hope this will help clear things up.

First, RAW format is simply the uncompressed (or very slightly compressed) 1s and 0s coming off your sensor chip. Nothing is modified and you have the greatest amount of post-shoot image control when you start with a RAW file.

The TIFF file can be uncompressed or compressed with a “lossless” (LZW) algorithm. A TIFF is smaller in file size than a RAW file of the same subject but still larger than a JPEG of the same subject.

A JPEG file can be saved lightly or heavily compressed. It is the format most commonly used on the Internet and is often the format used to deliver final images to clients. It can be opened by a wide variety of programs, including Internet browsers.

The one important thing to keep in mind about JPEG files is that, until they are opened and re-saved, their quality will NOT degrade. Image degradation in a JPEG only happens if you open a file and then save it during closing. No save, no image resampling. No image resampling, no quality degradation. A lot of people think that the simple process of opening the file causes a lowering of quality. That is not so — that happens during the process of saving/resampling.

Please share this info with your friends. The more you know about image file formats, the better. Incidentally, I didn’t know the info I just shared about JPEG files till about a year ago…and I had been working with JPEGs for years! Live and learn.