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Craig R

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 11, 2004
5
0
I am have many, many, many digital photos. My question is, when shooting pictures from my sony digital, should I save them as a JPEG or a TIFF? The TIFF is a non compressed image vs a compressed JPEG.

Will I experience data loss if I save my JPEGs more than once? The only problem I see is that the TIFFs are such HUGE files which will eat my hard drive space.
 

kgarner

macrumors 68000
Jan 28, 2004
1,512
0
Utah
Both are compressed formats, but TIFF is lossless compression (hence the large size). I just do all mine in JPEG, but I am only taking family style pictures and nothing very critical. You may want to use TIFF if you are going to be doing a lot of editing later on.
 

decksnap

macrumors 68040
Apr 11, 2003
3,075
84
Tiff vs. Jpeg

You should be able to use the Jpeg to take the pictures.. .However, after you open and manipulate it, save it off as a Tiff from that point. You don't want to re-compress it in a lossy format.
 

bousozoku

Moderator emeritus
Jun 25, 2002
15,600
1,757
Lard
Generally, the JPEG 2.7:1 format is good enough. If you're taking photographs for professional graphics work, always use TIFF.
 

Horrortaxi

macrumors 68020
Jul 6, 2003
2,240
0
Los Angeles
If your camera will save as tiff or raw then use that. You want your pictures to last and you want as much digital information as possible--and you won't get that with a jpg. You can edit the pictures and save a copy as a jpg, but hold onto the uncompressed picture.
 

superbovine

macrumors 68030
Nov 7, 2003
2,872
0
save the tiffs. for whatever reason the future you want to print, edit, etc you need the tiff. i know they are big, but it is worth it if you ever need the uncompressed picture.
 
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