What can you do with TIFF that you can't with JPEG?

[Allan Brown]

Received a Panasonic FZ7 for my birthday Friday. I noticed it has no
raw mode, but does have TIFF mode. I shot some pics this weekend and
can't really tell the TIFFs from the JPEGs. Am I missing something? I
have CS2.

--
'Nothing worth doing is ever easy.'

As the others have said, TIF is a non compressed file which is better for doing edits as you can save, save and save again with no ill effects. Try that with a JPG and see what happens.

Now, there are TIFs and TIFs. The TIFs from your Panasonic, as most other cameras of its type, only save an 8 bit TIF same as an 8 bit JPG. The TIF format is capable of much more. If you had a camera that created 16 bit TIFs, for example, then you would see quite a difference.

So, for the Panasonic FZ7, unless you are going to do extensive editing, then there is no advantage. Besides, you can achieve almost the same by converting the JPG to a TIF before you start to edit.

Allan

 

[Jim in TX]

If you read your camera manual carefully I believe you will find that it states that its .jpg files are COMPRESSED in the camera.

Nevertheless, there there may be one way to prove whether .tif content and .jpg content are identical as they come out of the camera. This will take a few sentences to describe:

Take pains that the filesizes are SET the same in the camera -- that is that the size of the 'automatic' .jpgs which accompany the .tif are supposed to be identical pixels. If this cannot be done, the test cannot be done at all. Next step is to convert each of these two files to .bmp files with the same software. Final step is to compare these two files with the Command Prompt that was "fcomp file1.bmp file2.bmp"

I may not be giving you the exact protocol for this command but it compares the two files. They should differ only in filename and time IF THEY ARE IDENTICAL in content. I really doubt they are.

 

[genece]

What I really doubt is, if you print (at any size) or view full screen on a monitor , you can tell any difference in a file shot as tiff and one shot in JPEG.
I do know, I can not.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
Gene
From Western PA.

Panasonic FZ 20 and FZ30
D50 and lenses.

http://imageevent.com/grc6



Just trying to learn and it's slow going!

 

[Erik Ohlson]

What I really doubt is, if you print (at any size) or view full
screen on a monitor , you can tell any difference in a file shot as
tiff and one shot in JPEG.
I do know, I can not.
--
------------------------------------------------------------
Gene
From Western PA.

Panasonic FZ 20 and FZ30
D50 and lenses.

http://imageevent.com/grc6



Just trying to learn and it's slow going!

My experience, exactly.

Now, there are TIFs and TIFs. The TIFs from your Panasonic, as most other cameras of its type, only save an 8 bit TIF same as an 8 bit JPG. The TIF format is capable of much more. If you had a camera that created 16 bit TIFs, for example, then you would see quite a difference.

That may well be where the difficulty lies, and why we all seem to have different opinions on this but - back to what Genece says, if it doesn't show in screen or print, what's the point?

IMHO, TIFF is still just a memory-eater.

Cheers -Erik

--



------------------------------------Don't let the Turkeys get you down!------------------------------------------

 

[Jim in TX]

If you have cause to project these images -- for example, if you are using them to teach photo editing you may see the difference.

 

[Erik Ohlson]

If you have cause to project these images -- for example, if you are
using them to teach photo editing you may see the difference.

You may well be right.

I did mention earlier that I had magnified a portion of an image to 1/8" pixils, could not see a difference, and although folks on another forum altogether where I posted the images said there was a difference, they could not point it out.

I do not discount the possibility that hugely magnifying the entire image might show a difference, but still see no practical advantage in ordinary usage.

As "they" say: "That's what makes horse races!"

Cheers -Erik



------------------------------------Don't let the Turkeys get you down!------------------------------------------