Image Formats

starixiom wrote on 4/9/2003, 10:04 PM

What is the best format or most verstile file format to save still images? I mainly want to use them for print work and maybe compositing stuff. I have been saving most my images as .tiff files but when i start moving from program to program they tend to look different. THe logo that i saved was all jagged at the same resolution that i created it. Some other pictures looked a little "off." I was just wondering what file format tends to be high quality (large file size) while retaining its attributes?

Comments

dcrandall wrote on 4/9/2003, 11:17 PM

Vegas is optimized to use the ".png" format for images.

starixiom wrote on 4/10/2003, 10:21 PM

I dont understand how it could be optimized for one format over another? Since a tiff file retains the most amount of picture information I would think that it would produce the best quality. I dont know the technical aspects though so i am probably wrong.

philfort wrote on 4/10/2003, 10:29 PM

TIFF and PNG are both lossless formats... I don't know why TIFFs would appear different in another program.

I also don't know what is meant by Vegas being "optimized" for PNG.

I almost always use PNG, never use TIFF, and sometimes JPG if I'm not really concerned about image quality.

PNG format supports an alpha channel... I'm not sure if TIFF does... if it does, I haven't been able to get it to work when saving from photoshop.

BillyBoy wrote on 4/10/2003, 10:39 PM

More than you probably want to know <wink>

http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/

I guess PNG is good because it is both lossless and uses compression, so you can have you cake and eat it too.

I don't know if or why Vegas is or would be "optimized" for PNG either.

dcrandall wrote on 4/11/2003, 12:07 AM

OK, optimized is a poor choice of words on my part. I should have said that ".png" is the format recommended by Sonicfoundry in the User Manual.

Chienworks wrote on 4/11/2003, 6:36 AM

PNG isn't necessarily lossless. It compresses much less than JPEG and therefore shows less compression artifacts. It does suffer some loss though, just not much.

TIFF does support an alpha channel when saved with 32 bit depth, but very few programs i've ever used make use of the alpha channel with TIFF. I've had much better luck with TARGA.

philfort wrote on 4/11/2003, 3:18 PM

On the website BillyBoy posted a link to, PNG is claimed to have "completely lossless compression"

Erk wrote on 4/11/2003, 3:25 PM

Re: Vegas and PNG, there was a thread some time ago where Spot was recommending someone use a png rather than a jpg for some image that was going to be pan/cropped, because the png would scale better or something. I could see why someone would use a png over a jpg, but why would be better than a bmp, tiff, or other lossless or nearly lossless format?

starixiom wrote on 4/11/2003, 3:43 PM

Now i am little confused with all the different types of formats addressed. From what i understand .PNG files are compressed but retain some file attributes that jpeg does not such as an alpha channel. I guess my original question was which file format is going to be the best to work with for video work. My assumptions so far from everything i read is that:

.TIFF is good for archival purposes and print work as long as you use the same properties to save and open your work. Has quirks due to different implementations of the standard.

.PNG has the benefits of compression size and file attribute retention. Good for website images as long as your browser properly implements the format.

.TGA files are the best for video/ 3d/ compositing work.

Please correct me where i'm wrong. Personally i would only want to work with no more than 2 different types if i can get away with it. Since there seems to be a lot of variations even within each format.