RAW versus TIFF

What is the difference between RAW output versus TIFF output for the FZ30?

My understanding is that the TIFF output still contains all in-camera processing (noise reduction, saturation, contrast, sharpening, removal of CA, etc unlike the raw), but is not compressed and therefore has no loss of detail.

Sorry, I am pretty ignorant of the TIFF format.

Can someone please enlighten me ?

thanks

Tiff format is not used much,as it takes up excesive storage space. It is preferable to use RAW as it contains all the information from the sensor,and takes up less space. If you have ACR Adobe Camera Raw,you can convert Raw to DNG Adobe Digital Negative format and save some storage
space. The following formats take up this space:

1) Jpeg 8 Megapixel mode 1.5 Mb storage
2) Raw 8 Megapixel mode 15 Mb storage
3) Tiff 8 Megapixel mode 12 Mb storage
4) DNG 8 Megapixel mode 7 Mb storage



Sam Schulenburg
http://www.pbase.com/samschul

sansin said:

My understanding is that the TIFF output still contains all
in-camera processing (noise reduction, saturation, contrast,
sharpening, removal of CA, etc unlike the raw), but is not
compressed and therefore has no loss of detail.

Click to expand...

Your understanding is correct. I don't see any noticeable difference in JPEG and TIFF with my FZ20 or FZ5 so I'd assume the FZ30 is similar. For these cameras, I don't think TIFF is worth anything.

--
Steve

--



Sam Schulenburg
http://www.pbase.com/samschul

TIFF images are what JPG images look like before being compressed for storage on the SD card. That is, they've been subjected to all the in-camera processing, de-mosaicing, etc., and the range of levels they can encode per sensor pixel is 256 levels each for R, G, & B; thus they contain "24 bit color." On the other hand, RAW images output sensor pixel info directly to storage at 12 bits per, giving them a range of 4096 levels of variation. Though TIFF is not "lossy," JPEG "fine" images are pretty close to lossless, when it comes to comparing with the TIFF counterpart. Like the guy said, TIFF is pretty much a waste of memory space and time.
--
Just let a smile be your umbrella!

John Reed

EffZeeOneVeeTwo, EffZeeThirty

Tiff is what you would use to edit photos over and over again, since it doesn't lose quality on each save like JPG does. It is also good when you want to send the file to someone else to edit when they cant open RAW files.

If you use jpeg, the pics are usually quite good. But if you try to get a large print of your foto, use noise filter and usm, you maybe notice jpeg- artifacts. I you think you are going to make that pic big, and you don´t have the RAV-feature in your camera, you may think the tiff- alternative
--
New gallery: http://koti.mbnet.fi/juhlofst/



Cheers, Jussi

Samuel Schulenburg said:

Tiff format is not used much,as it takes up excesive storage space.
It is preferable to use RAW as it contains all the information from
the sensor,and takes up less space. If you have ACR Adobe Camera
Raw,you can convert Raw to DNG Adobe Digital Negative format and
save some storage
space.

Click to expand...

[snip]

Yes, and DNG is worth checking even for people who don't use ACR, because lots of other software products accept DNG too. (Sometimes with restrictions, so they need to be checked).

Here is a list of products that support DNG in some form:
http://www.barry.pearson.name/articles/dng/products_y1.htm

--Convert your jpeg's to TIFF for superior printing. Larger file equals better print, because there is no compression. Results are noticabily better when printing TIFF instead of jpeg...especially for larger prints.
-Kurt Horsley
Panasonic FZ30
Olympus C-2100
Transcend digital album

Previously owned:
Olympus E-10
Olympus C2500
Olympus C700
Canon D30
Canon S1-IS
Panasonic DMC-FZ10
Panasonic DMC-FZ20
Fujifilm F401
Fujifilm s602z
Toshiba PDR-M700
Casio QV-2300
Casio QV-R40
Olympus OM-10
Olympus OM-2000
Many, many others...

would give you better prints?

I can understand if you do extensive image manipulation using the jpeg file and keep saving it on to itself in jpeg format then the image quality would suffer.

FYI - Even using different levels of jpeg compression like 10 and 12 in PS, you can't tell the difference in prints. And your file size will decerease by 3rd if save as jpeg level 10 files vs jpeg level 12 file.

--
Bobby

http://bobbyz.smugmug.com

Anyone got a comparason of a jpg pix vs one saved in raw & manupulated for comparason sake?

thanks

Thanks to everybody for the clarification.

One more question. Is the TIFF format as much amenable to post-processing as the RAW format ? In other words, can you post-process the TIFF photo with as much versatility as the RAW photo?

Adobe's Camera Raw module will open a Tiff file,providing all the tools that are available to manipulate Raw files. I do not believe that you get any advantage with Tiff over Raw. With that said,I have not tested both the Tiff against a Raw file.
--



Sam Schulenburg
http://www.pbase.com/samschul

Samuel Schulenburg said:

Adobe's Camera Raw module will open a Tiff file,providing all the
tools that are available to manipulate Raw files. I do not believe
that you get any advantage with Tiff over Raw. With that said,I
have not tested both the Tiff against a Raw file.

Click to expand...

The key point is that you can always turn a raw into a TIFF, but not the reverse. So TIFF files have some decisions committed that are still open for re-making in raw.

ACR opens raw, not TIFF. So it is the ACR decisions that cannot be re-made for a TIFF file.

Photoshop itself (that is, the photo-editor rather than the ACR plugin) opens TIFF (and other post-conversion formats), not raw.

pause said:

Tiff is what you would use to edit photos over and over again,
since it doesn't lose quality on each save like JPG does. It is
also good when you want to send the file to someone else to edit
when they cant open RAW files.

Click to expand...

Are you referring to the file size and loss of quality?

I did experience this but found out it was a setting in my PP program. Now as I manipulate the jpeg the file increases in size.

You must see with your vision,
if you have time see mine at http://lovelife.smugmug.com/

--Converting jpeg to tiff decompresses the jpeg compression and results in a much larger file size. This larger file has much more information for better detail...especially for larger prints. You may not see it in 4X6 but if you print 8X10 or larger, the detail and saturation is obvious. Also, if you manipulate the file before printing, TIFF is lossless.

Someone asked this question. This has nothing to to with RAW, although they both have MUCH more information for editing than jpeg does. Only difference is...one (tiff) is processed in camera, the other (RAW) is not. Those who appreciate the 12 bit depth of RAW would argue that you can't edit a jpeg as well as a RAW image. That's true, but you can do most of the same things to a jpeg if you just convert it to TIFF before editing.
-Kurt Horsley
Panasonic FZ30
Olympus C-2100
Transcend digital album

Previously owned:
Olympus E-10
Olympus C2500
Olympus C700
Canon D30
Canon S1-IS
Panasonic DMC-FZ10
Panasonic DMC-FZ20
Fujifilm F401
Fujifilm s602z
Toshiba PDR-M700
Casio QV-2300
Casio QV-R40
Olympus OM-10
Olympus OM-2000
Many, many others...

If there are hard circumstances for instance much constast, you can get better results with RAW. But with Tiff you get smaller files, its anyway a compressed form, but not lossy. I havn´t a Raw-camera, but big boys have told such things :=)
--
New gallery: http://koti.mbnet.fi/juhlofst/



Cheers, Jussi

--Actually, I'm finding RAW to have much SMALLER files than 8 megapixel TIFF. This is not a surprise to me. TIFF is usually much larger than RAW. My FZ30 RAW images are around15mb...but the same tiff is over 25mb, as I would expect. There is a huge misconception that RAW is the largest format. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It's just more BAD INFORMATION being passed on over and over again.

To my knowledge, TIFF is the largest format...though I could be wrong since I haven't experimented with the dozens of formats available.

-Kurt Horsley
Panasonic FZ30
Olympus C-2100
Transcend digital album

Previously owned:
Olympus E-10
Olympus C2500
Olympus C700
Canon D30
Canon S1-IS
Panasonic DMC-FZ10
Panasonic DMC-FZ20
Fujifilm F401
Fujifilm s602z
Toshiba PDR-M700
Casio QV-2300
Casio QV-R40
Olympus OM-10
Olympus OM-2000
Many, many others...

Kurt Horsley said:

--Actually, I'm finding RAW to have much SMALLER files than 8
megapixel TIFF. This is not a surprise to me. TIFF is usually much
larger than RAW. My FZ30 RAW images are around15mb...but the same
tiff is over 25mb, as I would expect. There is a huge misconception
that RAW is the largest format. Nothing could be farther from the
truth. It's just more BAD INFORMATION being passed on over and over
again.
To my knowledge, TIFF is the largest format...though I could be
wrong since I haven't experimented with the dozens of formats
available.

Click to expand...

You are generally correct. Even 8-bit TIFF tends to be larger than raw. 16-bit TIFF tends to be unusably large in the camera. It isn't clear to me why cameras bother to provide TIFF.

--Barry,

Perhaps my post three threads up can explain why tiff is usually offered in cameras. In short...

ALL images (including RAW) are shot in TIFF. Everything (except RAW) is then compressed to JPEG in the buffer of your camera. You can "un-compress" any jpeg back into a tiff and it will be at least five times larger file size than even the highest quality jpeg. Since TIFF is always the capture mode of ALL cameras, before compression to jpeg, they simply give you the option of not compressing the file to begin with.

JPEG is very similar to a zip file, but the file is always captured in TIFF first. If you have a small pocket camera that does not offer TIFF you can still "un-compress" your jpeg's in photoshop back into a tiff file. TIFF is the native capture mode though it does include in-camera editing. RAW is considered to be a "digital negative", but that's a big misconception. The true capture at the CCD is TIFF. That's why tiff is always larger than RAW.

RAW is definitely compressed in camera, for smaller file sizes, though it does bypass the editing process.
-Kurt Horsley
Panasonic FZ30
Olympus C-2100
Transcend digital album

Previously owned:
Olympus E-10
Olympus C2500
Olympus C700
Canon D30
Canon S1-IS
Panasonic DMC-FZ10
Panasonic DMC-FZ20
Fujifilm F401
Fujifilm s602z
Toshiba PDR-M700
Casio QV-2300
Casio QV-R40
Olympus OM-10
Olympus OM-2000
Many, many others...