gessman Loc: Colorado

Morning to you Bunny-Jean. Nice to see you "reactivated." I think you're right about the tiff being softer but I guess that, as others have said, the image might need printing to tell the real story. Thank you for the comment also. Spring's coming!!! :-)

kalmarrin

I see the same things you do...and I'm a little surprised. I'm still relatively new to some of this, but the JPEG is definitely sharper and does seem to have some subtle tones that I don't see in the TIFF. That was a good experiment...

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

I just tried the same experiment with LR4. I exported an image taken in raw file format. Then I used LR to export a full sized jpg with no changes to the image and I did the same for tif, dng and psd. The jpg looks slightly brighter than the 3 others. I am still thinking this is because of the lossy compression that jpgs use to achieve small file sizes.

This is no big deal because all raw images, whether converted to any other format or not, need some post processing to look their best.

gessman Loc: Colorado

Thank you for your comment. I was a little surprised also. It looks like "Jeep-Daddy" in the post following yours has taken it a step further. It's interesting.

gessman Loc: Colorado

I find it very interesting that compression would lead to what appears to be more punched up colors. The only thing I can figure is that it squeezes out the more bland middle tones and leaves only the high contrast extremes but I certainly wouldn't attempt to justify that. It would be interesting to hear from the people who program for the compression and ask them what they're doing in that process. Probably, as you say, not all that important but it begs the question of how a lesser quality image seems to look better at first glance. Thanks for posting the results of your experiment.

john clayton

Remember Tiff and JPEG can both be set to variations in quality.I have a camera of old that gives you about 4 different sizes from 640-480 to 2948-1536 with Tiff and 640-480 to 2048-1536 with JPEG. I must compare a low tiff to a high JPEG at A4.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

One of the questions about using JPEG is the ease of retrieval of EXIT data. I was surprises to read the following in Wikipanion (boldfacing is mine):

"When Exif is employed for JPEG files, the Exif data are stored in one of JPEG's defined utility Application Segments, the APP1 (segment marker 0xFFE1), which in effect holds an entire TIFF file within.

FredB Loc: A little below the Mason-Dixon line.

Using computer video monitors to compare file types is not going to give you accurate comparisons, EXCEPT with regard to looking at the images on video monitors. Resolution is FAR lower on them than on printed images, so both/all types get reduced to a common DPI by video driver software. That software may in turn alter color cast in ways not truly representative of the original file.

In all but the most radical differences, there will be very little VISIBLE difference between JPEG and TIFF files on a computer monitor. However, depending on the PRINTER and printer specs, there could be a HUGE, visible difference when printing.

Also, there are differences in how the human eye perceives CYMK vs RGB color profiles. So a video-displayed file may be better looking than a printed copy of the exact same file, and vice versa. There is no one true, always-correct answer.