Samsung
File Formats & Image Quality
When you're ready to save your photos, you'll need to decide what file format you want to use. Depending on what you want to do with your photos, you might end up using a combination of different formats to control the image quality.
The most common file formats are JPEG and TIFF. Professional and advanced photographers will also work with the Raw format, but that is less common for basic photography. Some cameras will allow you to save your files as Raw files. Raw files produce high quality images and have more flexibility for editing, but they also require additional software in order to convert them into viewable photographs.
Saving files in JPEG will cover most of your needs.
The JPEG file format is the most commonly used for digital images. When you export your photos from your digital camera, most of the time your camera has saved them as JPEG files.
Saving photos as JPEG files will cover most of your needs. However, JPEG files lose image quality the more times they are saved.
Photographed with Samsung Pro815.
Photographed with Samsung Pro815.
After being resaved several times, the image quality of this JPEG file has degraded.
Photographed with Samsung Pro815.
A JPEG file is a lossy file format, which means that the file is compressed to save storage space. This compression results in some loss of image data, which increases every time you save your file. All of this important to know if you are doing a lot of editing and saving on a JPEG file. It's likely you will lose some quality in your photos. Some cameras have a range of JPEG settings-choose the top setting to optimize image quality.This is especially important if you are printing your photos.
Photographed with Samsung WB550.
Photographed with Samsung WB550.
Use a JPEG instead of a GIF file for websites.
At one point, GIF files were commonly used for photos on websites, but they've been replaced by the more robust JPEG files. A GIF file, while fine for logos and graphics, is less desirable for photos because it can only display 256 colours. The smaller range of colours means that photos can sometimes appear splotchy on the site. For the best image quality, use JPEG files for website photos.
Photographed with Samsung WB550.
Unleash your creativity with TIFF files.
Because you lose image data every time you save something in a JPEG format, use TIFF files if you plan on doing a lot of editing and enhancement to your photos. A TIFF file is a mostly lossless format-meaning that it is not compressed, and therefore doesn't lose any of the image data.
However, because the file is not compressed, the file size will be larger and will require more storage space. A larger file is also harder for your computer to process and takes longer to download. This makes TIFF files a poor choice for website photos or for sending over email. If you want a smaller file size, you can always edit your photos as TIFF files and then save a JPEG version for sending to friends or posting online.
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