Digital Camera In Action

Interior photography such as this bedroom is an art and very much in demand.

Your digital camera stores the image data in a file and, just like computer files, there are different file formats. it is good to have a notion of what each one is. Your camera might allow a choice of formats to save the pictures.

The most popular formats are:

JPEG – Joint Photograph Experts Group – it will appear as .jpg extension, compressed but with minimal loss of quality. JPEG is a good format for photos because it supports a complex set of colors. It will save space in memory and download fast. Good also for email or the Internet, although pictures may need some resizing and setting the proper resolution.

TIFF – Tag Image File Format – uncompressed, large files, used mainly by professional photographers because it gives lots of flexibility to edit and print.

GIF – Graphic Interchange Format – compressed and specifically designed for the Internet. The possibility to make a color transparent is what makes this format popular because the image background can be made invisible. Other plus is that GIF images can be animated. The downside? Image quality is not as good as with other formats and it only supports a simple set of colors.

RAW – different for every manufacturer – the image data is uncompressed and unprocessed. Many professionals prefer to shoot in raw format to have more data to work with later.

The ideal format for the pictures depends greatly on what you intend to do with the pictures after the shoot.

Web images are usually save at 72 dpi because this is the typical resolution for a Mac monitor – windows monitors usually have 96 dpi – dpi stands for dots per inch – and print resolution is much higher, usually 300 dpi.

PNG – Portable Network Graphic – is a file format that many image editing and graphic programs support, although it is unlikely for the camera to deal with this format directly. It is popular for the web as it is possible to make a color transparent but it supports a more sophisticated set of colors than GIF.

 
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