png, tiff, or jpeg? which is better and why

[vexingv]

i work w/ a decent number of pictures (thanx to my canon a40 camera & scanner)...and i've been thinking of conserving some disk space. my scanner scans into tiff format while my camera exports files as jpegs. will i lose any quality converting from tiffs--->png or jpeg---->png. is the png format better?

thanx

 

[WannaFly]

If your camera saves as JPGs, leave them as JPGs - just try not to re-save over and over.

With scans, i'd go with JPG still - png isnt highly adopted by alot of software that i know of (might be wrong on that)

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

png is lossless, but for photographs, its compression is usually pretty awful.

 

[ClueLis]

tiffs are uncompressed, while JPEGs use lossy compression, so yea you'll lose some quality. There's very little difference between PNGs and JPEGs in quality (though PNGs allow for alpha transparency, while I don't think JPEGs really do).

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: ClueLis
tiffs are uncompressed, while JPEGs and PNGs use lossy compression, so yea you'll lose some quality. There's very little difference between PNGs and JPEGs in quality (though PNGs allow for alpha transparency, while I don't think JPEGs really do).

pngs aren't lossy.

 

[vexingv]

i guess i'm gonna keep my camera pics in jpeg since by converting them i lose all the nifty stats/info about the camera. as for the scans...i just converted a few and the pics are about half the size and quality is still pretty good. i guess i always convert to jpeg at another time since png is lossless

 

[ClueLis]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

Originally posted by: ClueLis
tiffs are uncompressed, while JPEGs and PNGs use lossy compression, so yea you'll lose some quality. There's very little difference between PNGs and JPEGs in quality (though PNGs allow for alpha transparency, while I don't think JPEGs really do).

pngs aren't lossy.

edited to correct that. sorry

 

[Tetsuo]

gif is the best for net images. But your better just staying with jpg

 

[Sid59]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
png is lossless, but for photographs, its compression is usually pretty awful.

yeah because the range of colors are so deep in pictures. PNG is awesome though.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: Tetsuo
gif is the best for net images. But your better just staying with jpg

GIF sucks. PNGs can be viewed in practically every browser except IE 5 on Macs... and who cares about Mac users? . PNGs support alpha, and you don't need any tricks to get more than 256 colors in a PNG.

 

[rbV5]

I'd just burn the photos to CD's in their original format if you want to save some disk space.

 

[mbackof]

If you are going to edit them, use tiff.
If you are going to just save them to admire, jpeg. Jpeg has the best compression algorithms of the three.

 

[WobbleWobble]

PNGs can save vector information so you can edit layers and resize vector items easily.

TIFFs are lossless and uncompressed while JPEG is a lossy compression.

I like to use PNGs to work as my main save file and export to JPEGs/GIFs when doing graphics for the web.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
PNGs can save vector information so you can edit layers and resize vector items easily.

!?! I never knew that. Is this really true?

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
PNGs can save vector information so you can edit layers and resize vector items easily.

!?! I never knew that. Is this really true?

No, it's not.

<- Author of a PNG decoder.

 

[tart666]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
PNGs can save vector information so you can edit layers and resize vector items easily.

!?! I never knew that. Is this really true?

at least in fireworks. in fact, png is the fireworks native format, supports layers and vector stuff...

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: notfred

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble
PNGs can save vector information so you can edit layers and resize vector items easily.

!?! I never knew that. Is this really true?

No, it's not.

<- Author of a PNG decoder.

Fireworks opens and saves PNG files with the vector and layering information. That's why I say that...

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

You sure it doesn't save a png + an extra file with the metadata? AFAIK png is a raster-style format and isn't even capable of storing that stuff.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
You sure it doesn't save a png + an extra file with the metadata? AFAIK png is a raster-style format and isn't even capable of storing that stuff.

Nope, it's a single file.

 

[alexruiz]

I use jpegs at 95% quality for color pictures. However, I scan the pictures in .MAX format (PaperPort), thenI save them as .jpeg to distrobute them. I keep both files, being the .MAX my master.

For B/W I usually use .TIF group 4..... However, I don't know what could be the best bet fro grayscale files....

 

[skace]

<- big fan of PNG when it comes to image archives

 

[Jeff7]

I convert the JPG image files from my camera to BMP for working with them with a photo editor. If I want to save them for an archive, I just use WinZIP or WinRAR, or I'll save them as a full-quality JPG. It seems to work for me.

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: WobbleWobble

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
You sure it doesn't save a png + an extra file with the metadata? AFAIK png is a raster-style format and isn't even capable of storing that stuff.

Nope, it's a single file.

Then it's some Macromedia extension to PNG because there are no provisions for vector graphics in the PNG spec. However, PNG is an extensible format so it would allow someone like macromedia to add in thier own vector graphic support. But standard PNG files don't do vector graphics.