Digital Photo Format

[A.B.]

Your resolution of choice should depend on the importance of the pictures and its intended use:

For example if you only need images for email and the web then the lowest resolution would probably do. Download various pictures from the web and check their size, you’ll find that most are under 100 k in size.

To print good quality pictures, either 8 x 10 or even for a magazine, you’ll need to print at 300 DPI. That means Dots, or pixels, Per Inch. Make your calculations to find the resolution you’ll need. Remember that most pictures will need cropping, or you might want to print or enlarge a section of the picture, so take that into account.

When it comes to compression and picture quality remember that there are 2 types of compression: Lossy and lossless

Tiff images can be saved using lossless compression (LZW) which scientifically reduces the files size while maintaining 100% of its quality. Your camera probably don’t compress while saving, that’s why you have the huge file size. You can remedy that easily by loading the images in Photoshop and saving them again compressed. Depending on the image expect a reduction of 40% to 70%.

Lossy compression is used in the Jpeg format. It basically averages out small sections of the images and takes out redundancy. It will do this every time you save the image so if you need to work on the image, keep it in tiff format.

Jpeg images are not really that bad. You can set the compression ratio and a high ratio will give you great results and will degrade slower with every save. Even though in the magazine industry using jpeg is a big no-no, I’ve seen them used with more than satisfactory result. In fact from my personal experience the degradation in picture quality from my slides to the printed version in magazines had more to do with the post production equipment used and operator skills rather than the original source format.

I personally keep all my images in compressed tiff but use a jpeg version for viewing. But I take my photography seriously and routinely have them published. If you’re not that demanding then store your images in high quality jpeg but work on copies to keep the original intact and fresh when needed.

You haven’t mentioned whether you’ll take along a laptop or not on your trip. With this kind of camera I recommend that you do if you can spare the space for it. This will make your life so much easier, although bulkier.

Hope this helps.

------------------
A.B.

OasisPhoto.com – Images from the Magical Sahara.
ShortWheelbase.com – Jeep preparations.