Digital Image File Types
The digital image file types which are the most common and the most important for
general purposes (cameras, scanning, printing, and use on the internet) are JPG, PNG,
TIF and GIF. Of course, there are more choices other than these, but these four are
reasonable and good choices.
JPG Files
JPG files are used commonly by web pages and digital cameras because of its ability
to make the data and images very small. They make use of lossy compression and is
very much preferred when a small size is favored over maximum quality. However,
when the compression is not over done, JPG can be good enough in some cases. If
important JPG images are to be archived, repeated editing and saving should be
avoided, because every time you save an image as JPG, it losses its quality.
TIF Files
When commercial work is considered, the TIF files are perhaps the highest quality
that you can choose. This is a lossless file, which means the original will not be
degraded. While the TIF cannot be shown by the web pages, it is by far the most
versatile file format, being favored for almost anything to be based on, such as the
camera RAW files, multi-page documents, or fax files.
GIF Files
The GIF format was designed ahead of the JPG, during the early days of 8-bit video.
It is an indexed color, which is not good for 24-bit color images today because these
colors are limited. GIF uses lossless compression.
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