TIFF vs JPG

[kelley burke]

My 2mp dig cam records pics in a 1mb JPG file format. Once I download them to my computer and run them thru my Adobe PhotoDeluxe software, I saved them into a TIFF file.

I read and was told TIFF is the best file type for pic files......

Anyway my question is this....
If my native image from my camera is a 1mb JPG file, am I getting any quality advantages by converting them over to a 5mb TIFF file?

Is it possible this TIFF conversion its making the native pic better?

Or is the native file is the best quality its ever going to get and extra mb's in the tiff format is just a big waste of extra space....?

[Edited on 6-10-2002 by kelley burke]

[steve]

You are not gaining image quality by converting from JPG to TIF, you're just losing more disk space.

The advantage of TIF is if the image needs to be edited, you will not lose anymore image quality by opening it, editing it, closing it and opening it again and again ...

With even the best quality setting for JPG you will lose a little image quality everytime it is re-saved as JPG. This is a compressed file format.

For most people's use today the highest quality JPG direct from the camera is more than sufficient to make great prints and it saves a lot of hard drive or CD space.

-Steve

[Herb]

I use JPEG and TIFF in exactly the way Steve mentions - I use the Camera in JPEG mode. Once the picture files are in my computer, if I want to manipulate them in any way (most just get deleted) I save them in TIFF format, and do ALL the re-sizing, cropping and other enhancing in TIFF. Finally, I save the finished product in JPEG format - and if it happens to be a picture I especially like, in the highest quality JPEG. Then I usually delete the TIFF versions to save disc space.

But here's another thing I've started doing. I read somewhere that in-camera sharpening isn't as good as sharpening done in your computer: and whoever said that also said that for this reason you should always set the camera's sharpness setting to 'SOFT'. And he said - for some technical reason that I don't understand - that you should only apply sharpening function as the LAST step in the manipulation/enhancement process.

So I've been doing just that. My Olympus C2100UZ is always set on 'SOFT' and I always leave the sharpening to the last. It really does give me better pictures than I got with the camera set on 'normal' or 'hard'. BTW, The sharpening function that I use is the one in ACDSee - and I usually set it at 'maximum'. I've tried the sharpening function in Photoshop LE too, but I find ACDSee easier to use. Photoshop LE often seems to overdo it.

[padeye]

Originally posted by kelley burke
If my native image from my camera is a 1mb JPG file, am I getting any quality advantages by converting them over to a 5mb TIFF file?

FWIW the jpg format is not "native" to any camera. Your camera may not have an option to save in raw format but conventional CCDs record information differently than conventional file formats. Each pixel has only one primary color with half the pixels being green, a quarter red and a quarter blue. AFAIK the Foveon CCD in the Sigma SD9 is the only CCD that records images with all three primaries in each pixel.

Converting the raw data from the CCD to TIFF can actually make a bigger file but give less color depth. For this reason I never use tiff in my camera but raw if I want the best possible file. JPG is a different kettle of fish as it doesn't record each pixel discreetly but Steve and Herb covered it well. For the most part I use high quality JPG in the camera and RAW format for critical work.