If you are into digital photography, chances are that you have already come across the different file formats used by digital cameras. It doesn’t matter if you are an amateur or a professional because you will have to deal with them when taking pictures and transferring them to your computer and
eventually editing them.
But which image format is best for you? It all depends on the result that you want and how much control you want to have over editing your images. Below are the most common image formats used by digital cameras.
1. JPEG
- this is probably the most popular image format used not only in digital photography but also in web design. It is a good thing because you can be sure that you can open your file using any computer and without the need of special software. There’s a downside, however, since JPEG is considered a ‘lossy’ format, which means that a lot of details are lost due to the format’s compression.
2. TIFF
- the answer to JPEG’s lossy quality is the TIFF format. It means that more details are saved which translates to a better image quality. But it comes at a price since TIFF files are notoriously
huge and could eat up storage media space in no time.
3. RAW
- among the three, RAW could be considered as the file that shows images at its, well, rawest. RAW images are unprocessed which gives photographers more control in editing them later on.