quality prints

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Can someone tell me what is the best format to save files from a digital
camera to make them the best quality possible. I am under the assumtion that
digital camera's can only save as .jpg, raw, or some .tiff. I was told by a
"Professional" that "Professionals never use .jpg, they are only good for
websites and email". Is this a correct statement?
 
Pure nonsense. First, raw came in just a few years ago. Shooting in raw has
only one advantage: better for color balance correction if needed. In order
to print raw you need to convert it to either tif or jpg.
Converting to tif has some advantages, only if you plan to edit this photo
as graphic artists do, using Photoshop or some other pro software (this is
not just a little color balance, contrast, etc). This is why a pro would you
use tif over jpg when converting a raw file and it also has the advantages
of "Save as" with no degradation (see below). Or a pro lab would ask for a
tif file, so that adjustments can be made with no danger of degradation.
Now, do Pros shoot in tif? Very few. It simply takes too long to save the
file and get the camera ready for the next shot, but if not in a hurry why
not. The question then becomes will "you" see the difference, using "your"
camera and printing on "your printer".

Using TIF over JPEG is best?


This used to be correct, in the days of poor resolution digital cameras and
scanners. Things have changed dramatically and unless you want to print very
large (by large I mean more than 12 x 18) from a pro shop there is
absolutely no advantage to save tif files over jpg for printing.



Do the experiment yourself. Have your camera take a picture and save as tif.

Open the file in your computer and "Save as" and select jpg for the file
type.

Now work with the jpg file to observe degradation, as you Save as.

The first point is, every time you "Save as" a jpg there is a little loss
and artifacts introduced, so if you edit a picture and you Save as many
times, there is some degradation with each Save as, but not with Save, if
you
use Save to save your changes as you are editing.

So if you plan to edit the file many times and Saving as a new file with
your editing, keep it in tif until done and then save it as jpg when done.
With more recent editing software, the degradation is avoided when using
Save as by using an intermediate file type, such a png, psd, etc. So all the
editing and Save as is done with the png file until done and then Save as
jpg, so you get the convenience as with starting with tif.



The second point is, can you see the difference? Only you can tell, no
amount of info will convince you. So you do the experiment yourself, with
the equipment you have.

It has been done many times. Here is one way to do it.
Take the jpg file, converted from the tif file you took with your camera,
right click on it and click on Copy. Hold the Ctrl key down and press the
letter V. This will make a new file in your folder "Copy of filename.jpg
(note there is no degradation when you do this,
since you don't open the file and Save as, you only copied it).

Now.
1. Open this file in your photo editor and Save as. Give it the name Copy of
filename 1.jpg
2. Open Copy of filename 1.jpg, Save as and change 1 to 2 in the file name.
3. Continue doing this until you Save as this file 15 times.
Then you can start opening them and look at them on your screen, when do you
begin to see degradation? Can't see it yet, keep going to 25 Save As. At one
point you will see the degradation.
But the real test is not seeing on your screen, you screen magnifies
everything when you look at the photo at 100% and we don't trust you (well,
no insult here!) since you know the file number you are looking at.
Now, print number 1, 3, 9, 15 and 25. Print as large as your printer can
print.
Don't look at the print too closely, just place a little number in pencil on
the back of them. Then, give them to somebody and ask them to place them on
a table in a random order. Can you pick the original? If you do, try again
the next day. Did you get it again? If you can pick the original
consistently, then it does make a difference. If not, no more to argue about
and now you know how far you can go with your jpg files and you need to edit
them again.

Now print your tif file and add it to the mix. Can you consistently pick it
out? Others can consistently pick it out? If so, it does make a difference
and so shoot in raw or tif for important photos.
Then you can ask your tif using friend to pick the print that looks the
best.
You may be surprised!
Give us the results a few weeks from now if you wish.



Some will tell you that there is no point in shooting in tif, since you can
convert the jpg from your camera into tif using your computer. Yes you can
convert, but if you start with a jpg you do not increase the quality by
converting a jpg to tif. This is only good if a pro lab wants files
submitted in tif format.
 
Thank You Yves, I know most of that from your previous post to me about
digital pix size. It just irrated me some by this person saying that
"professionals" don't do it that way, and I was not helping the person by
giveing them the information that I got off this forum. (I was on another
fourm and someone was asking about taking pictures etc.........) So I posted
some of the info from you, John, Paul, Papa J etc.
I don't know that much about this photo stuff and am trying to learn as much
as I can, this forum seems to have the most helpful and considerate people. I
really appreciate all the help that I receive here. I sometimes rattle on but
am trying to learn, Thanks again.
 
It is partially true: professionals do not use jpgs but the later part of
the statement that it is only good for websites etc is rubbish.

JPGs are versaltile. Although the storage format is lossy. It discards some
info for the sake of storage effeciency, the most noticeable data is
preserved. You should not worry too much. JPGs are good enough for everyday
use including printing high res pictures.


Furthermore if the camera is itlself storing it in JPG then converting to
another format can never increase its quality. However if there is some
option to store the image in the camera as RAW format then that is the best
quality image data you can retrieve from the camera.
 
Well, photo forums can bring on some heated discussion. Often what I find is
that information is given, such as shoot in RAW or TIF and never JPG, but no
proof is given or recipe to indeed find out which one is better. So, rather
than being information, it is just opinion.
If you want to learn more, visit this site:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/
Under the "current selected highlights" on this site you will find an
article about RAW and what can be done with it.
Also, you can click on Understanding Series tab at the top of the page,
Moore...Understanding RAW files.

A huge amount of info on this site about digital photography and very well
presented with clear examples of the results of different approaches.
 
Again I THANK YOU!

Yves Alarie said:
Well, photo forums can bring on some heated discussion. Often what I find is
that information is given, such as shoot in RAW or TIF and never JPG, but no
proof is given or recipe to indeed find out which one is better. So, rather
than being information, it is just opinion.
If you want to learn more, visit this site:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/
Under the "current selected highlights" on this site you will find an
article about RAW and what can be done with it.
Also, you can click on Understanding Series tab at the top of the page,
Moore...Understanding RAW files.

A huge amount of info on this site about digital photography and very well
presented with clear examples of the results of different approaches.
Click to expand...
 
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