Tiffs or jpegs?

I

Itti

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Itti
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I'm sure this has been asked before, but... when saving your RAW files do you save them as tiffs or jpgs or both? I'd never heard of tiffs until a couple of months ago (shooting RAW is new to me) but I understand that it's twice as much information. Is this information necessary?

Are there any circumstances in which I would need specifically a tiff file or a jpeg file (i.e. should I save both)? Or would I be okay with just one or the other?

Thanks!
 
I saved everything in jpeg simply because I didn't really know the difference between that and a tiff. However, everytime you open and re-save a jpeg, it loses information. I now save everything as a 16bit tiff and save another reduced and watermarked for the web in jpeg format. That way I know I shouldn't have any problems printing as the tiff gives out the best quality, if I'm correct.

I do know that in stock photography, agencies generally want you to upload jpegs if online.
 
So you would advocate saving both?

I have seen different places seem to ask for different things so I was a bit confused. Photography magazines seem to ask for a mixture, as do the few competitions and things I've been looking into lately.

Also I should mention I don't have my own printer (well, I do, but not a huge quality one) so I usually order prints online. I've always done this with jpgs in the past, is it possible to do with TIFFs?
 
I know you can go in to a printing shop with tiffs.. no idea about uploading online though.
if disk space is an issue, and you wanted to save in tiff format, maybe it'd be a good idea to save the tiffs then when you want to submit to a competition etc, you open the tiff and save it as a seperate file as jpeg?
 
Well I save everything as a JPEG, but I keep ALL my RAW's
So If i ever need to have a TIFF or anythin I just re-open the RAW and save it as what I like.
 
A TIFF is an uncompressed file, whereas a jpeg is compressed. Every time you save a jpeg it suffers further compression and suffers a slight loss in image quality (depending on the compression factor) but the effect is cumulative the more often you do that.

I tend to save a full sized TIFF and a jpeg version, the latter usually reduced to web size. For important shots I'll also save the original RAW file. You can end up needing lots of storage space, that's for sure!

If space is at a premium then save the RAW file which is considerably smaller than a TIFF.
 
As above, jpegs degrade each time you resave them.

TIFFS are much better if you want to edit your file in photoshop after tweaking it from the RAW file (editing such as clone stamping or other bits and pieces).

Personally, I go through my raws, ditch the crap ones and then save as TIF. I then rescale the TIF in photoshop and save a jpeg for web (assuming I'm putting it online).

As for printing companies, if you're doing professional work with professional printers (which i assume you aren't but im sharing info anyway), then clients/companies normally want to see a few jpegs first and then you would send the TIFS later as requested. Personally I only work with TIFS - even if i receive a jpeg, i resave it as a TIF so that i can play around with it, and it all gets shipped off to the printer as a giant PDF.

For just printing ** photos, jpeg, but maybe some place will let you use TIF. TIFS are huge though so to be honest just use jpegs for this.
 
I save all my processed files as .Tiffs, without final sharpening applied, this means I can then easily change the output size and apply appropriate sharpening for the required print size without losing any quality

simon
 
simonkit said:
I save all my processed files as .Tiffs, without final sharpening applied, this means I can then easily change the output size and apply appropriate sharpening for the required print size without losing any quality

simon
Click to expand...

Yep... that's how I save my TIFFS - sans sharpening.
 
Interesting about RAWs being smaller files than TIFFs. Also didn't know you could convert tiffs to jpgs. Sounds like the most versatile options are
1. Save as TIFFs and you can convert to jpgs later if you need to or
2. Save as J-pegs but keep the RAW file in case you need a TIFF later.
 
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