06-26-2007, 05:26 PM
While I don't have a specific answer for your situation, there are some things about LZW compression that you should understand to know when it's appropriate just from a file size point of view.
LZW compression works by compressing repeated sequences of bytes within a file (and they usually need to be relatively near eachother). This works really well with ascii text because words tend to repeat.
For graphics LZW might not be appropriate, a scanned photo will not compress, and may even get larger (and slower). The types of things that may compress well are computer generated graphics on a solid color background.
You should try a few experiments with your real-world data just to look at file sizes with/without LZW compression.
LZW compression works by compressing repeated sequences of bytes within a file (and they usually need to be relatively near eachother). This works really well with ascii text because words tend to repeat.
For graphics LZW might not be appropriate, a scanned photo will not compress, and may even get larger (and slower). The types of things that may compress well are computer generated graphics on a solid color background.
You should try a few experiments with your real-world data just to look at file sizes with/without LZW compression.