what is the best type of file to use when saving scanned negatives and
photographs onto disks. e.g jpeg, bmp etc.
thank you
john marsden.
John, I like to use a file type that is lossless. For example: bitmaps,
TIFF or scanning to Photoshop or Painter and saving in their native format.
These initial saves become the "master" copies of the images. After editing
and touchups, I save once more in that lossless format. Then the image is
ready for whatever.
If the final target for the image includes consideration for file size,
then I'll open the "finished" image and use Save As to create a JPG copy of
the file. Many programs have "batch converters" which make this easy to do
for a large number of files.
I tend to use JPG for creating photo CDs that have hundreds of images
presented in an album format. Each save with the JPG format will drop some
image data so it's not good for opening a file, tweaking appearance, saving
changes -- over and over again. However it's a nice space saving file
format and good for sending images via email or for posting to a website.
I'll still retain the original file/format in case ... oh say, I want to
print a high quality picture for framing. These originals might get moved
off to CD or DVD if hard drive space is needed.
Hope this helps,
