Genealogy Chat

Could someone kindly explain, in simple language please, the difference between JPEG, TIFF etc.?

I've had a computer for a few years now and for the most part I manage OK (I'm self taught - trial and error). I've always had and still have problems 'scanning' documents, photos etc.

For some reason the 'end product' is always massive. Every time I end up with something that is several MBs. I've tried reducing the resolution but it still doesn't work.

I've asked for tips on this subject before - I've received help, which I've followed but still no luck.

Thanks,

M. Steer

Hi Margaret, the Jpeg and Tiff are file formats, usually the Jpeg will produce the smaller file/best quality as it is compressed.
However, most scans are large unless you go for a low resolution in black/white or poor quality Tiff.

Try this link

http://photo.net/learn/raw/

Roy

Thanks for your replies.

Stargazer & Roy, I shall have a look at the 'links' you gave.

So presumably, if I want to send (via e-mail) a copy of a photo or BMD Certificate I should use JPEG?

Michael, I don't mean to be difficult (I'm truly trying to understand) but you said TIFF stores everything 'as is' - so why, when I scan a photo that is say, 3" x 5" (approx.) it ends up more like 3' x 5'?

I suppose I still haven't grasped the difference between photocopying and scanning?

M. Steer

Stargazer & Roy, I've read the 'links' that you gave me - unfortunately they've confused me even more.

I maybe wrong but I get the impression that these sites are directed at digital photographers. I have a lot of old photos (mostly black & white, some sepia) a few are (give or take a couple of years) 100 yrs.old.

M. Steer

Margaret,

When Michael says "as is" what he means is that the TIFF process saves all the image details, resolution etc without loosing any of the clarity. All the other processes compress the details in order to reduce the amount of storage needed, and as a result, some of the clarity is lost.

You really need to consider getting some software to manage you pictures, after all you are a digital photographer now you have all these images.

This will allow you to save touch up, re-size and save all your images in a consistent manner.

Unfortunately it isn't an easy topic to become expert at, and not something that can be covered adequately through a few messages on here.

Some of the magazines such as "Your Family Tree" have regular subjects on managing photographs digitally.

Dear Margaret,

Even if you can't avoid getting huge files, maybe you can then reduce those afterwards. I don't know what comes with your scanner, but it probably is similar to what I have, so here's what works for me.

With my camera, I got some software called HP Photo and Imaging Gallery. My gallery is normally set to my photos, but I can Use the "File - Open" menu item to switch galleries to my document collection folder (and back). If I select an image in the gallery, it opens a tool called the image editor, so I select say, 1866-John.jpeg, and it opens in this image editor. Now all I do is "File - Save As" - the default name it suggests is 1866-John.jpeg and the default type is All Files (*.*), and that just gives me a straight copy. However, I can explicitly set the type as Jpeg (*.jpeg) and then a compression box appears, and choosing a low compression reduces the size of the file. You should also change the name of the new file to say, John_1866.jpeg, in case you overdo it - you want to be able to try again.

I can also use this image editor to change from .tif to .jpeg and back.

Thanks all, for your replies and tips.

It seems that I was scanning my photos 'via' TIFF - they were resulting in MBs, I've since tried JPEG - the results KBs.

I still don't understand the differences in GIF, TIFF, JIF (oops! sorry that's a cleaner) JPEG etc., but at least I now know which one to use.

One further question please. JPEG compresses the photo, so should I increase/reduce the resolution, or won't it make any difference?

M. Steer

Dear Margaret,

I would save higher resolution (i.e., big/biggish). Once you've lost the data, it doesn't recover properly. (It's sort of like tearing pages out of a book - you can probably guess what happened on the missing page(s), but you don't know for sure). When I email those pics out, then I make a copy with lower resolution and send that - I don't want to overflow their mailbox - also some ISPs limit the size of incoming attachments, plus if their access is over a phone line, it takes about 7m for 1MB of files @ 56kbs (the actual amount sent is a bit bigger as there's checksums and routing info added).