tiff

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

roy king wrote:
> I am uncertain as to whether I should always take photos as a tiff setting
> rather that even the best JPEG .i want the best quality pics when printed.
>
> Thanks
> Roy

TIFF has the same processing applied in-camera as JPEG does (AFAIK -
true in my Oly camera, at any rate) - it's not the equivalent of RAW.

If you want the best quality, take your pics in RAW format and then
"develop" them using eg. Pixmantic's RAWshooter Essentials (free for
now) or something like Photoshop CS 2(very expensive for now).

If RAW isn't an option, and you need to use TIFF or JPEG, you should
take a close look at several things - 1. does your camera compress JPEG
so much that you have artifacts (like grey "rims" around high-contrast
objects, banding in the sky, etc.) on your test prints (not on your
screen - not the same thing at all....)? 2. do you like to edit, crop
down a lot, etc. every picture, or do you print what the camera gives
you? 3. do you want to interpolate the picture up to larger than it
was originally?

If you see compression artifacts in your prints, you want to edit
everything, or want to enlarge the pics greatly, use TIFF; otherwise
highest quality JPEG will do in 99.9% of cases - IMHO, of course.

Good Luck!
ECM

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0
(US$99, but frequently available about $69)
also supports raw formats via its Camera Raw 3.1 plug-in.

In my opinion, the quality difference between .TIF and best-quality
(least-compressed) .JPG is very minor at best, probably is negligible.
Consumer digital cameras with small-sized memory buffers and/or slow
processors take a lengthy time to write their large .TIF files, and are
much speedier when writing smaller .JPG files.

I agree with ECM's posting that the best options for modifying images
can be obtained with raw files, if your camera offers that feature.

I believe that the biggest advantage of raw files is the
16-bits-per-pixel (actually: 14 bits from the sensor + 2 bits "padding"
= 16 bits output) color depth. .TIF and .JPG direct from a camera are
dumbed down to 8 bits color depth, whereas a raw file can be converted
into 16 bits .TIF. The greater color depth allows for much tweaking
of levels, curves, contrast, and black/white points without creating
color banding in the prints.

But shooting raw files requires that you adjust the exposure
compensation, to be certain that the histogram doesn't touch its
right-hand border. You want that the highlights not be overexposed
("blown out"). Unless your camera has particularly noisy electronics,
you probably don't need to worry too much about shadow detail
(histogram touching its left-hand border).

________________________

ecm wrote:
> roy king wrote:
> > I am uncertain as to whether I should always take photos as a tiff setting
> > rather that even the best JPEG .i want the best quality pics when printed.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Roy
>
> TIFF has the same processing applied in-camera as JPEG does (AFAIK -
> true in my Oly camera, at any rate) - it's not the equivalent of RAW.
>
> If you want the best quality, take your pics in RAW format and then
> "develop" them using eg. Pixmantic's RAWshooter Essentials (free for
> now) or something like Photoshop CS 2(very expensive for now).
>
> If RAW isn't an option, and you need to use TIFF or JPEG, you should
> take a close look at several things - 1. does your camera compress JPEG
> so much that you have artifacts (like grey "rims" around high-contrast
> objects, banding in the sky, etc.) on your test prints (not on your
> screen - not the same thing at all....)? 2. do you like to edit, crop
> down a lot, etc. every picture, or do you print what the camera gives
> you? 3. do you want to interpolate the picture up to larger than it
> was originally?
>
> If you see compression artifacts in your prints, you want to edit
> everything, or want to enlarge the pics greatly, use TIFF; otherwise
> highest quality JPEG will do in 99.9% of cases - IMHO, of course.
>
> Good Luck!
> ECM

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

camera critter <thcaadoc@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> In my opinion, the quality difference between .TIF and best-quality
> (least-compressed) .JPG is very minor at best, probably is negligible.

Until you start editing it.

Try changing color balance, brightness/contrast, using Levels or Curves,
and so forth. You will almost certainly change your mind.