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Have you ever wondered what the differences are among the scores of digital image formats out there? Some of the more common ones we see are GIF and JPEG but what does it all mean, and why are there so many? Plus, how do you know which one to use for the Web, and how can you take advantage of the different feature sets each one offers? Read on. Saving in minimally compressed RAW means that you will always be able to come back to the data file and manipulate it however you want. By saving in the commonly seen alternative JPEG camera format, you are introducing unremovable, hard-baked processing -- like white balance and contrast -- into the image. Think of saving in RAW as a bit like saving a negative.
Re: Sorting Out the Image Format Jumble
Posted by: Kagehi 2012-05-03 11:29:41 In reply to: Patrick Nelson
Why the frakk don't cameras provide PNG as a compression option? Yeah, RAW works, but well.. You can get a shitty, badly optimized 1MB JPG, a lossless, compressed 2-3MB PNG, or a 10MB RAw file. If you are willing to put up with bad quality, you can get a lot more pictures with JPG, but if the number of pictures you can get is, say, one one of those digital camcorders, like 10,000 images, I don't mind only getting 5,000, but I would have to be out of my bloody mind to only get 2,000. Its worse on normal cameras, which might give you say 500 JPG, 250 PNG (if it even supported it), but like 50 RAW files. Mind, I am guessing at numbers here, but the near doubling of the image size isn't that far off between JPG and PNG, and RAW often contains more information than BMP files, which are almost 10 times bigger, for the same image in PNG, depending on just how complex the image is.
That the photo industry insists on continuing to use a compression format, which was invented before digital cameras existed, as a means to store images that where like 6,000x5,000 pixels in size (real high quality things, on special machines, for making prints, not home photos), on a bloody camera that, at best, often only supposed like 800x600, and more often less (A nearly 9x decrease in the size of the image, and therefor quality), is beyond my comprehension. If it was any other industry, and they where opting to pick the worst possible method of capturing something, because it was easier, and commonplace, but not intended for what they where doing with it, it would be called flat out stupid.
That the photo industry insists on continuing to use a compression format, which was invented before digital cameras existed, as a means to store images that where like 6,000x5,000 pixels in size (real high quality things, on special machines, for making prints, not home photos), on a bloody camera that, at best, often only supposed like 800x600, and more often less (A nearly 9x decrease in the size of the image, and therefor quality), is beyond my comprehension. If it was any other industry, and they where opting to pick the worst possible method of capturing something, because it was easier, and commonplace, but not intended for what they where doing with it, it would be called flat out stupid.
