Wednesday 11 May 2005

Today:

• Important leader celebrates 22nd birthday
• New camera phones announced
• A few recent snaps
• Image file formats - Which is better: TIF or JPEG?

Hi,

If you are a close follower of 'hard news' such as global politics and economics like I am, you would no doubt be aware that today is the 22nd birthday of Neighbours star Holly Vukadinovic - better known as Holly Valance. So happy birthday Holly (no, she doesn't subscribe to this newsletter - yet - but if you know her, feel free to pass this on to her)! While researching this important topic, I also discovered that is Holly related to the late Benny Hill (Hill's cousin was her grandfather).

On a more photographic note, the latest offering in the cameraphone wars is Nokia's N90. According to Nokia's press release the phone features a 2 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, and 'Carl Zeiss optics'. In any case, on the Nokia website there are some pretty impressive photos supposedly taken with the phone. I'll have to get my hands on one (I only just got a new phone so I might have to wait a while)! By the way, Samsung supposedly announced the 7 megapixel SCH-V770 cameraphone with 3x optical zoom a couple of months ago.... ...and If you just can't wait until these fancy phones hit the shelves, you can always get a good price on today's camera phones at LimeMobile.com.au

Hey... your feedback helps me build a better newsletter. If there are parts of the newsletter that you think are nonsense, say so! By the same token, let me know which bits you loved!

A few recent snaps

On Monday I was back at Macquarie Bank to do a new round of headshots. As you can see, I managed to convince the lovely Amanda that having her photo taken was not the worst thing in the world.	...and while I was at Macquarie I did a few shots of their foyer, too. Stay away from the window if you're scared of heights.
Last week I joined Len Harrison, Chairperson of the National Retirees Executive of the Canadian Auto Workers Union (what a mouthful!) and AMWU retirees representatives at a meeting with the Victorian Minister for Aged Care, Gavin Jennings. It was fascinating to see the historical speaker's dining room and the library at parliament house.	On Sunday 1st May, Frankston City Council had their annual Mayor's Family Picnic, where the Mayor, Rochelle McArthur, joined in for some laughter therapy to celebrate World Laughter Day.

Image file formats - Which is better: TIF or JPEG?

Some of our clients ask us to provide images as TIF files; some ask for JPEGs; some don't know the difference, don't care, or don't know what the hell I'm talking about :-) Which kind are you?

Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you - but, like many questions of this kind ("what kind of digital camera should I get?"), there's no "one size fits all" answer to which format is "better". Horses for courses, as they say.

If you're impatient like me, though, here's the simple answer: TIFFs theoretically are the highest quality, but in practice JPEGs are fine for almost everything.

OK. Now, here's the proper (long) answer. If it gets too technical, see the short answer above!

Essentially the reason that TIF files are theoretically better quality is that in order to make the file smaller for transmission or storage, they are compressed using a lossless algorithm. That is; the pile of numbers that are used to describe the image are squashed, but in a way that does not alter the original information in any way when it is expanded again.

Conversely, while JPEG files are also compressed, the compression used is lossy - so that when you open the file again, it is not identical to the original. Why would you want this? Well, the compression available with JPEG is much more efficient, so the files are much smaller if you're saving them onto a disk, or faster if you're transmitting them over the internet. The downside is that if the compression (which is adjustable) is set too high, then artefacting becomes visible. This manifests itself as pixellation and fuzziness in any area where the colours change (especially edges of objects).

So - which format to use, when? (this is where it gets even more complicated. Sorry.)

Most (probably all, actually) consumer digital cameras save their images straight to the memory card as JPEGs. Professional (and some high-end consumer cameras) also permit saving images in some kind of RAW format.

RAW files are not image files that can be opened directly on your computer. Rather, they are a proprietary format of file which needs to be "unencoded" by the camera manufacturer's software, with Photoshop, or with a third-party product like Capture One (which is what I use). The RAW file contains all of the data captured by the camera's sensor.

RAW files take up several times as much memory as JPEGs, but they have a couple of major benefits: quality and flexibility. Once the RAW files are loaded onto a computer for processing, the colour balance and contrast characteristics of an image can be adjusted before saving it as a TIFF or a JPEG - without altering the original information.

When you capture in JPEG mode on your camera, the data from the sensor is converted to an image file, and then discarded.

Some colour and contrast correction is possible with JPEG files, however the results are generally less good - essentially because you have a fairly limited amount of data to begin with. For example if I want to warm the colour balance of an image by making it more orange/yellow, the computer needs to extrapolate this from the available data. Conversely, when making these adjustments from the RAW camera file, the computer has all of the information captured by the camera to work with. Get it?

So, when do I choose JPG or TIFF?

I almost always shoot in RAW mode. This gives me the ultimate in quality and flexibility I can get out of my camera. The one exception is when the following three conditions are met: [1] the client has specifically asked for JPEGs (usually because of storage & processing considerations on ordinary office computers), [2] the lighting during the shoot is predictable and consistent (e.g. daylight), and [3] there will be a large number of shots.

If only two of these conditions are met, I'll shoot in RAW mode and then send the files as JPEGs if required.

In fact, I often send JPEGs as the final product. JPEGs saved at a high quality (low compression) setting are almost indistinguishable from TIFFs and still use up substantially less space. For work that is to be reproduced at less than, say, A4 size, JPEGs are every bit as good as TIFFs.

Where the best possible quality is required - large reproductions such as posters or double-page spreads, or covers, I supply TIFF files.

OK, I'm losing patience with this nonsense - it's time for me to stop working and go to bed!

For the technically-minded, curious, or those with too much time on their hands, you can learn even more about JPEGs here and TIFFs here. Good luck!

Oh, and of course - know that you know all about the difference; if you have a specific requirement, please let me know when you book the job so that I can supply your images in the format you want. Otherwise I'll decide for you!

Now. Last week I asked you who you knew who works in advertising, graphic design or PR; owns a small or medium sized business; or is responsible for marketing in their organisation. But I didn't hear from your friend. So you must have forgotten. Please forward this message to them so that they, too, can learn about the joys of my silly rants (and so that I can get to work with more brilliant people like you).

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That's all for today.

Cheerio,



Steven Pam
Steven Pam Photography