PNG is preferred. It has full color, supports an alpha channel for transparency, and uses lossless compression.

Rob Mack

sorry to hj, but what exactly is a .png or a png file i've never heard of it before, or if i have, not heard it referred as that.

PNG is "Portable Network Graphics". It uses the same sort of compression scheme as GIF files, but works with 24 bit color instead of 8 bit color. In it's most common formats it is lossless. The file sizes tend to be substantially larger than JPG, but the quality is better.

Look at the Save As: filetypes list in your favorite photo editing software. It should be listed there.

i just use my layered photoshop .PSD files, and they seem to work great. is there any reason not to use those?

PSDs work fine. I use a combination of JPG, PNG, and PSD (with a few others thrown in when that's what I have). The WORST one you could use is TIF as Quicktime is required to read them.

The PNG format was designed to be the replacement for the GIF format. It will even handle shaded transparent areas which is great for drop shadows. However it has taken a while for web browsers to properly render the image. Perhaps over the next few years the PNG format will actually start to catch on. Technicly it really is an amazing format.

As far as my personal file preference I would tend to go PSD, PNG, and JPG in that order and with the original format being the best as long as changes didn't need to be made. If space is a concern or if you want to give the client a CD of all the images then go with JPG just under the full quality level.

In Photoshop versions prior to 7 the PNG save feature didn't seem to work exactly as it was supposed to when you had a transparent area. However since 7.0 all of that seems to be fixed.

JBJones

I too had a problem with PNG saved in photoshop. It's been long enough that I can't remember the solution. But there was a solution and I can use PNG created in photoshop 6.0 for Windows just fine.

I think that the problem was with PNG saved from a Mac. The problem may have been with Quicktime.

I have Vegas set to treat PSD files as if they have a 0.9091 pixel aspect ratio. Vegas can do this on a file-type basis so I reserve that file type for this. I work with images of circuit boards a lot and fine that the square<--->Non-square interpolation tends to destroy detail.

Rob Mack

Ed,

Tiffs have been around a lot longer than quicktime. SoFo would have to license to read and write them though

SoFo may be relying on Apple's license.

Many programs can read and write tiffs without Quicktime but, really, PNG does the same thing and is now almost ubiquitous.

You're right, Tiff isn't a good choice any more.

Rob

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear that VEGAS requires Quicktime to read them. I wasn't saying TIF's CAN'T be read without Quicktime. Obviously other programs do so. However Vegas REQUIRES the authoring components of Quicktime in order to read them. Whether or not it's a licensing issue really doesn't matter to me. I just know that going through Quicktime isn't necessary when using PNG, JPG, or PSD which makes them better choices.

Right. Not arguing. Just making the point that while Vegas uses Quicktime to read Tiffs, Quicktime and the Tiff format aren't joined at the hip.

The only reason to use tiffs is if some other software forces you to use them. It used to be very common but hardly anything locks you into that format any more.

Rob

If I remember rightly the license for tiff is owned by Unisys, to provide tiff support directly within your own software you have to pay a royalty to Unisys.

I am guessing that using QT as the middleware this does not apply.

First bit is right - second is a guess.

Cheers, PAW