Armadillo Loc: Ventura, CA

Gessman,

I looked closely at the image containing both animals, I could not detect any difference.

Before you make a final decision you need to realize there are actions taking place on your image you may not be aware of.
1. There are two types of tiff image formats; one has preset compression, and the other has loss-less compression.
2. The jpg file format compression usually has a slider to set the compression, this can be adjusted to set the level of compression and therefore the quality of the .jpg image.

You may want to check your digital editing program to make sure your .tff format is loss-less, and your .jpg format is set to the highest quality possible.

The sad part about this whole discussion is in the programmers who develop image editing applications and use their own reference for the slider in .jpg formats. Unless the software developer states which direction the slider moves and how that direction affects image quality; you are playing a guessing game. You can save a lot of images until you reach the sweet spot in .jpg compression.

Add one more variable into the equation. Image print size. If you use a high level of .jpg compression and re-sample the image size from 34 inches down to 3 inches your image will look good on your monitor, and the web, but if you print that image it will look terrible.

Michael G

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

In my opinion the jpg is a little more saturated and appears sharper. But I believe these are the effects of jpg compression. In jpg compression pixels that are similar are either given the exact digital reference as the most prevalent pixel in the area or they are discarded to make the file smaller. So if there's highlights that are a certain brightness next to a few less bright areas, the less bright will be replaced with the same brightness as the others causing the image to appear more saturated and sharper.. Same with other areas of similar brightness and color.

The tif can still be adjusted more because it has between 4000-8000 brightness level where the jpg only has 256 brightness levels to adjust.

wylie Loc: Canada

Anyone realizing a difference in the two subjects might also realize a difference in the ability of the left eye compared to their right eye.
What I know about a tiff file is that throughout the development of digital art, photos, graphics, etc., there was a singular program to my knowledge in the graphic arts field that originally claimed to prefer tiff files. That was Quark Xpress. Those folks soon moved to eps files and then jpeg(s). Does anyone even know what "tiff" means, OR what it stands for?

Armadillo Loc: Ventura, CA

TIFF (originally standing for Tagged Image File Format) is a file format for storing images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and both amateur and professional photographers in general.
~Wilipedia

gessman Loc: Colorado

I'm not sure what Canon's DPP does with the original RAW in their conversion process so I cannot sensibly address your comment but I appreciate you making it. DPP, in the event you aren't familiar with it, is a fairly no-frills piece of software and if there's an option for me to affect the jpeg before or during the conversion process, I didn't see it. After DPP converted the files to jpeg and tiff, I made no further adjustments so it wasn't anything I did to affect the quality of the jpeg.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Your assessment is pretty much in line with what I think I'm seeing. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Armadillo Loc: Ventura, CA

Gessman,

I think we may be at cross posting communications (all confused).
I did not write anything about Canon, DPP, or RAW. My comments were about the different image save formats you used.

If I am all screwed up it's my trifocal glasses.

Michael G

gessman Loc: Colorado

Well, while my right eye is a little problematic, don't know if it works or not but I covered both eyes one at a time and looked at the image and what I think I see is that the jpeg is more saturated and sharper, the same reaction I had with both eyes working. I'm not sure how knowing what the acronym represents affects the appearance of the image. Is there something that you're implying that makes the tiff somehow deficient?

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

I just performed the same experiment and had the same results. I believe that it's the difference between 8 bit and the 16 bit files. That is, the tif has 4000-8000 brightness levels and the 8 bit jpg is only 256 levels of brightness. Brightness plus compression make the images look different. But remember, the tif has so much more information, in other words, way more colors and way more brightness levels, that the adjustments you make will be more graduated and smooth on the tif.

Plus, the more adjustments you make to an image, the more information that is thrown away. Have you ever noticed the histogram before and after an image has been edited that sometimes when and image has a lot of adjustments the histogram will have vertical lines all through it? This is the data that has been discarded and is usually more pronounced when editing 8 bit images verses 16 bit images.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Well, I had a choice of converting the RAW to an 8 or 16 bit tiff and chose the 8 bit to keep as level a playing field as possible. I intend to go back and do the same test having DPP convert the tiff to a 16 bit image.

RealBohemian Loc: Toronto

JPEG or the TIFF. Tell me what you think, please. Thanks.[/quote]

Only difference i can see is JPEG is slightly more saturated

charles brown Loc: Tennesse

He was right, printing them will be the only way to tell if there is a difference, Start with a 5x7, then 8x10, etc. Would be interesting to know at what size you began to see a difference, if at all.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Only difference i can see is JPEG is slightly more saturated[/quote]

Thank you. I think that's what I'm seeing now also.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Thank you.

Bunny-Jean Loc: Wisconsin

Morning Gessman, The Tiff seems softer to these old eyes, jpeg definitly sharper. Great photo!