In general you want to stay away from PNG for complex imagery. JPEG is the preferred format. TIFF isn't really worth the file size except as an intermediate for editing (in very critical applications)

In general you want to stay away from PNG for complex imagery.

Out of curiosity, why would you say that?

Mike

I'm wondering the same thing. Vanilla JPG is visually lossy. I can't think of a reason to choose it over PNG.

Thank you for your replies.

So, two points still are not clear for me:
1-when I scan with my Epson,
"save as PNG"
Photoshop offers PNG options
Interlace none or interlaced
Which one should I choose?
2-When the photo finishing lab scans as TIFF
no matter how they save or
they should save noninterlaced, uncompressed, unfiltered.

This is a nice explanation:

https://www.fractalus.com/info/png-jpeg.htm

Wikipedia is more to the point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics#Comparison_with_JPEG

Mostly it's just that JPEG is so much more efficient at the same quality level -- again, assuming you're not going to be editing & resaving the image repeatedly at the same resolution.

OGUL, I believe the interlaced option only relates to web browsers, and is not applicable for stills on a Vegas timeline.

Your lab should be able to explain which is the best file format/options for your needs.

Efficiency is important for web downloading times. It's not necessarily the most important consideration for local work.

And remember, PNG is the format of choice for Vegas.

Eh, that statement has been bandied about here for ages. I've never yet seen an official person say one way or the other.

Personally i think RAW is the format of choice for Vegas since it decompresses everything in order to work on it.

PNG is handled natively by Vegas, TIFF support is provided by the QuickTime software (and we all know how flaky that can be.)

PNG is entirely lossless and can contain an alpha channel, it is the preferred image format in Vegas.

Ogul,
Don't interlace (PNG), don't compress (TIF), don't filter (EITHER).
Sorry that was not clear.

Kelly,
"I've never yet seen an official person say one way or the other."
Improving JPEG Images in Vegas
If PNG isn't the "official" format of choice, it is this user's choice.

AndyL,
The first article you linked is seriously outdated. So much so that it describes PNG as 256 (indexed) color. The PNGs I save are full 24-bit, 16.7M colors, and are lossless. Vanilla JPG is (very) lossy.

The Wikipedia comparison strongly favors PNG over JPG in every significant aspect, including all the ways anyone here would use it. I wonder why you quoted it since it supports exactly the opposite case? I submit graphics to a publishing chain for advertising runs on a semi-regular basis. They accept TIF, PNG, EPS, AI, and a few others. Guess which one they don't accept?

from the 1st link:

"Pronounced "ping", this is a relatively new (1995) format that was designed to replace GIF. It handles images up to 256 colors, like GIF, but it also handles 24-bit images like JPEG...."


from the 2nd:

"JPEG (Joint Photography Experts Group) can produce a smaller file than PNG for photographic (and photo-like) images, since JPEG uses a lossy encoding method specifically designed for photographic image data, which is typically dominated by soft, low-contrast transitions, and an amount of noise or similar irregular structures. Using PNG instead of a high-quality JPEG for such images would result in a large increase in filesize (often 5–10 times) with negligible gain in quality."

How are you reading this to mean Wikipedia favors PNG over JPEG in every significant aspect?

If I'm reading it correctly, the OP is asking about an end format for scans of photographic prints and negatives. Unless these are going to National Geo or some other high-end publisher, scanning to Tiff or PNG is just a huge waste of storage space--especially for anything involving vegas, which is going to downres all the images to 1920x1080 or smaller.

As long as you don't create multiple compressed generations, JPEG is an outstanding format for photos.

JPEG is an outstanding format for photos, providing you don't mind some (possibly near insignificant) generational loss. Keep in mind that even the very first save into JPEG is a generation that incurs loss.

On the other hand, if you don't care about file sizes, why subject your images to any loss at all? PNG at it's worst is still as good as JPEG at it's best, and PNG doesn't get worse than that. JPEG can easily be far worse. And if you do care about file sizes, JPEG's effecively lossless mode produces files of similar size to PNG. JPEG achieves smaller files by throwing away (losing) image data.

Regarding TIFF, it's compression algorithm is lossless, in fact based on the same algorithm used for GIF and PNG, both of which are lossless. There's absolutely no detriment to compressing TIFF images and no benefit keeping them uncompressed. The only downside with TIFF in the Vegas realm is that it relies on QuickTime's crappy decoding.

Andy, your entire point seems to be centered around file size, which is a storage issue. That is not a terribly important consideration for editing, except that the more highly compressed formats (smaller file size) actually take more resources to unpack to raw pixels in editing applications.

I rarely cite Wikipedia as an authority, but this is from the article you quoted:
"PNG is considered a better choice than JPEG for storing images that contain text, line art, or other images with sharp transitions."

How are you reading this to mean Wikipedia does not favor PNG over JPEG in every significant aspect ;?)

The issues of resource loading (which are significant), initial quality, generational loss, all of which are worse for JPG than for PNG, are all more significant factors for this editor. Both have respectable compression compared to uncompressed sizes, yet one is lossy and one is not.

Add to that, a number of high quality JPG photos on the timeline chokes Vegas 8.0c, and the same ones converted to PNG do not, and my choice is clear.

Since this has been discussed to death already, I'm going to end my part in it, and hope the OP has gained some useful information.

Kelly, not all TIF compression is lossless. JPEG compression is an example. Also, TIF files compressed with LZW simply do not open in some applications, I recommend against it

Andy L, your point about JPEG being smaller is true, of course, but today that and the fact that EVERYTHING reads and understands jpeg it are the ONLY aspect of the format that are superior to the losless formats, including PNG. I don't know if you've ever had to scan a bunch of slides/negatives/prints before, but it is not a fast or inexpensive thing. It is quite labor intensive, and usually requires some sort of touch up on each image. Even if you hire it out, it will be significant in cost because of how labor intensive (to do it right) it will be. That's why when an image is scanned, you really want to strive to never have to scan that image again for some other purpose that may come up in the future. Also, as our source material ages (negatives, positives, prints) it is losing quality, so our most valuable sources need to be scanned for archiving purposes (scanned PNGs don't age) and the sooner this is done the better. The ideal would be to have to ever scan an important image exactly one time...ever. For that reason, if you are scanning something, do it right the first time...and don't think that you'll come back and do it again if/when you may need something larger/higher quality/etc. For example, don't scan to a resolution that is ideal for video because that's what you want right now. For crying out loud, what if you want to print an 8x10 next year? Are you going to scan it again?

That said, the cost of storage (especially for images, which are sooooo small compared to the video we have to store) is extremely low. I really can't think of any situation at all where it would be a good idea to scan images to JPEG...and instantly lose quality. Remember...almost every scan needs a little touch up, and ever save loses a generation with JPEG. Also, have you ever seen the banding artifacts in a compressed JPEG across subtle color transitions (many times in the sky)? Why deal with this when you can buy a hard drive for $69 that you will likely not be able to fill up, in the near future anyway, with large, lossless images?

No doubt JPEG is an excellent image format...for final delivery, to view on mobile devices, or on the web, or even for photo capture for small, cheap cameras (jpeg images are easy to process in camera, small, and any software can manipulate/see it...that's why it's used for consumer cameras). I store all of my photos in their original, lossless state (I even convert original jpegs to PNG before editing, and store the lossless if I have them)...use those for editing, archive, backups, etc. I always export these to the ubiquitous JPEG format for viewing on basically any device. To make a, well, analog analogy, I treat JPEG images like the old photo albums...they are for displaying, looking at, and leaving on the coffee table while the archived "negatives" are stored in a cool, dark, back room (my lossless archived images). My two cents, anyway. To each his own, of course.

To the original poster, besides the interlacing (not necessary or desirable in some situations), your settings look pretty good. Depending on what you're scanning, though, that resolution may exceed the effective source resolution significantly...but there is absolutely nothing wrong with that except larger files...so if you have the space, there is no downside. Even if you wanted to batch convert a bunch of them to smaller resolutions for video (don't forget to leave some resolution room for panning/zooming if you'll be doing any of that), go for it. But if you're taking the time to scan something...my advice is to do it right the first (and hopefully only) time...and that appears to be what you're already doing (just lose the interlacing).

It may be blasphemy to say so, but for photography, there's nothing a PNG capture offers you that a JPEG fine wouldn't match. Need to edit heavily? Convert JPEG to Tiff or psd and have at it.

To be sure, I work with a lot of RAW files, but I do that to manipulate sensor data directly. If I couldn't shoot RAW, I'd shoot JPEG with few regrets. Capturing to PNG wouldn't do anything for me other than fill up memory cards faster.

As for scans, in the past I would have said saving to a lossless format was a no-brainer, but I'm kind of surprised to say I just don't see it as that clear an issue any more.

One thing we know about JPEG is that it's as future-proof an image format as we've got . I think you should always store your best images in at least a JPEG copy for that reason.

As for losing data, every time we digitize something we are throwing away huge amounts of data.

This can make you obsess about holding on to every last bit, as I used to, or it can free you to focus on what actually matters: which is the image, and how it affects the people who look at it. And high-quality JPEG is visually identical to lossless formats.

One last thing: the longer I've been working with digital, the more I see file size and storage space as precious resources. They're not cheap! Your good stuff will eventually get lost if you try to keep everything. Because the hidden cost of giant files and multi-TB hard drives is time, and this cost corrupts everything.

Thanks for getting me to think about this subject. I'm discovering my philosophy has changed a lot since my D70 days. :)

"It may be blasphemy to say so, but for photography, there's nothing a PNG capture offers you that a JPEG fine wouldn't match. Need to edit heavily? Convert JPEG to Tiff or psd and have at it."

Well, there is one thing PNG offers: lossless compression. I can't see PNG being any less future-proof than JPEG.

For video editing JPEG is suitable for most images especially when taking into account where the final content is going to be displayed SD, HD, you start having problems with images with text, flat art and line drawings these don’t reproduce well with JPEG’s so for this type of image pings are way better.

Andy_L

It certainly isn't blasphemy, but it is dead wrong. In fact, there is only one place where JPG has anything to offer compared to PNG and that is in file size. If you scan an image and save it as a JPG the image has already suffered quality loss.

I work with a lot of RAW files, but I do that to manipulate sensor data directly.

So, why is that? It is because you get better results with the wider color space and the lack of compression. So, why would you not use PNG from that? PNG gives you, in a portable format, the same advantage as your RAW format in that there is no loss of quality. Once you store in JPG, the quality is gone. Forever. Never to come back.

Is this visible to most people? You bet. Any image of the sky with any amount of gradual transitions will suffer badly by being JPEG encoded. Banding is never nice.

One thing we know about JPEG is that it's as future-proof an image format as we've got

Why would you say that? PNG is at least as future-proof as JPEG, most people would argue that it is far more so.

And high-quality JPEG is visually identical to lossless formats.

Really? Do you work with small computer presentations only? I am sorry, but I can't say this in any different way - you are simply wrong. JPEG at any size above what is pushed to the typical browser suffers. At all quality levels.

Because the hidden cost of giant files and multi-TB hard drives is time, and this cost corrupts everything

Again, rubbish. Sorry, it's the only way I can say it. Here's what you do after shooting with your DSLR. You go through your images after having shot them. You rate them. Say from 1 through 3 stars. 1 is for excellent images that you could sell to magazines if need be, 2 are shots you think you would sell like hot cakes had you made them availabe, 3 is for stuff you think should be included in your next art exhibition. Anything that doesn't fit into 1, 2 or 3 you delete.

All the pictures of your family, birthdays, that kind of stuff, you shoot with your JPEG saving point-and-shoot. You shouldn't be dragging your SLR to those things anyway.

That is only slightly exaggerated.

Oh, and before I forget, for electronic delivery, that is, for when you drop those images onto your website, you obviously use JPEG. For your masters, you clearly use a non-lossy format.

For those of us who remember the pre-digital age. Storing all your images in JPEG is like developing all your pictures, printing them at a standard photo size, and then throwing away the negatives since they are cumbersome to handle and you can always copy the printed image. It's absurd.

I don't think anyone has mentioned EXIF metadata. Can you have it with PNG? You certainly can with JPEG and also with TIFF I believe.

"In general you want to stay away from PNG for complex imagery. JPEG is the preferred format."

In all the discussion and references that have come since, I have still not seen a direct explanation for this rather odd statement.