Digital Cameras And JPEG Files

While it is true that most consumer digital cameras save images as JPEG by default, it is usually not your only option. Todays cameras are much more sophisticated and memory is cheap.

Digital camera users should click through all of their camera's settings. Most will find that their camera has the ability to save pictures as "RAW", "TIFF", and possibly "BMP" or "PICT". Unless your camera is more than 5 years old, you should have at least one of these options.

I have listed the possible format options in order of picture quality. Typically, the higher the quality of the image, the larger the file size. You will see a sgnificant decrease in the number of images you will be able to store on your camera's memory card based on which format option you choose.

While the RAW format gives the best quality, not all computer programs are able to read them. They are not compressed at all, and the file size is very large. This may not be your best option, unless you intend to use sophisticated software to manipulate the image and save in another file format later.

I submit that it is best to save images taken with your camera, or even scanned imges, as TIFF files. This file format can be read by nearly every graphics, word processing, and layout program. The file size is smaller than that of the RAW file, while providing professional quality.

This file type can also provide compression without losing any data. Unlike the JPEG format, which is the least desirable, unless the pictures taken will only be used on the web, and it doesn't matter if some of the quality is lost.


-- Andy