Task 7

Describing a range of graphic file formats and how they work: –

TIFF – a filetype ending in .tif TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format, these images can have very large file sizes as they are uncompressed. So in turn they have a lot of detailed image data in them. TIFF images have a range of colours, and can be very flexible with colour, with grayscale, CMYK for prints and RGB for the screen view.

JPEG – a filetype ending in .jpeg, this stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG files contain images that have been compressed unlike TIFF files. They are like this so they can contain a lot of the information that are in photos.

Some of the image detail is lost during the compression though to make the file smaller – lossy compression. JPEG files are used for photographs that are on the web as the small file size is created from them, and they load well on webpages and look great.

It’s not recommended to use the JPEG filetype to store any logos or digital art/graphics as the compression of the JPEG filetype makes the image look blurry and have jagged lines.

GIF – a filetype ending in .gif GIF stands for Graphic Interchange Format. GIF filetypes are also compressed, but not the lossy way that JPEG files are. GIF is lossless, thus no detail is lost when it’s compressed.

GIFs are mainly suited for the web, as they don’t work well when printed out. And because of their limited colour range they are not used for photography. GIF file types are used for animations as well.

PNG – a filetype ending in .png PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics, this filetype was created as an open graphic format to essentially replace GIF filetypes as the GIF patent was owned by one company and no one else wanted to pay liscensing fees for it. Compared to GIF files it has a full range of colour and better compression of the files.

PNG is used only for web images and not for print images. PNG is not normally used for photographs as it makes a larger file than JPEG does. Line art images or graphic files are good for PNG as it makes the images look less “bitmappy”/pixelated.

Raw Image Files – raw image files normally have data from a digital camera. They’re called raw as they haven’t yet been processed and can’t be edited or printed yet. There seem to be many raw formats for each camera company – they all have their own proprietary format.

Raw files are not compressed and have a lot of data in them. The file size is really large. These files are normally changed to .tif files before editing and colour correcting them.