Re: Scanner question: what kind of saved format is best for printing?

[petermarshall@xxxxxxxxx (Peter Marshall)]

> When you scan an image, there are several options to choose from as far 
> as
> saving format is concerned.
> 
> Which format is the ebst for printing stuff yourself?
> 
> TIFF
> JPG
> BMP
> etc.
> ?????
> 
> Or save as one, and then convert to another using Photoshop or some such
> program?
> 
I find Photoshop loads BMP files faster than TIFF (even if uncompressed) 
so I use this. There is no difference between them in terms of quality.

JPEG is different in that it is normally used to compress files to a much 
smaller size. The technique used for this loses some of the detail in the 
original and introduces artifacts. So it is best not to use this. Work 
with your files in other formats and only save as jpeg when you have them 
ready to put on a web site.

However you can still get good prints from jpegs - I had an A3 poster - 
28Mb BMP file - and needed to print it at work a couple of years back. The 
only way I could take it in was on floppy disks. Rather than span it 
across 20 disks I compressed it to a 1.4Mb jpeg file. Printed perfectly!

Peter Marshall

On Fixing Shadows and elsewhere:
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ds8s
Family Pictures, German Indications, London demonstrations & 
The Buildings of London etc: http://www.spelthorne.ac.uk/pm/