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Digital File Formats and Recommendations
Gif File Format
Gif is the recommended format when working with images of limited colors and/or including sharp lines. These images would include line drawings, images such as cartoons, text documents, heavily captioned images, some maps, etc.
The Gif format uses an 8 bit structure which is capable of recording up to 256 colors or gray-scale shades. Therefore, uncompressed files are already one third the size of Jpeg (8 versus 24 bits), and the more limited color range better records sharp lines and fewer natural distinctions among a more limited number of colors.
Although, Gif is a lossless digital image file format (no pixel information is eliminated in the compression process), it is effective in consolidating stored information about areas of the same color. Therefore, depending upon the nature and complexity of an image, Gif will often result in a much smaller file than Jpeg for the types of images recommended for Gif.
Gif is better at distinguishing between sharp lines and representing limited colors because it records information in an 8 bit format, which only provides the ability to distinguish between 256 colors or shades of gray-scale. On the other hand, the Jpeg format with its ability to record and reflect millions of colors, can actually become too subtle in its image representations and blur distinct lines and colors in these sorts of images.
Gif is also a file format which is commonly accepted and readily transferable.
Other Digital File Formats
Professional photographers will often opt for lossless file formats as they desire to have and retain a maximum level of detail in their images. This increased and lossless detail can be important to them as they often spend considerable time adjusting, cropping, and otherwise manipulating their images.
However, by capturing and saving large image files, the professional is often working with files that exceed a size that would be readily sharable with a broad audience.
Raw Format - The Raw format is a lossless digital format typically associated with digital camera image capture, and is often preferred by professional photographers. The Raw format preserves the greatest amount of "raw" image information, which in turn provides professionals with the greatest future digital editing ability. The format results in very large files, which offsets the value of expanded editing possibilities by anyone other than professional photographers.
TIFF Format - Tiff is a lossless digital file format associated with both cameras and scanners. The Tiff format is also used by many professionals and some non-professionals. Like the Raw format, the Tiff format results in large file size and an increased difficulty in sharing the files with others.
Image Editing Software Formats -
Image editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop Elements,
