05-19-2008, 06:52 AM
You didn't mention the dpi. This is as important as the file format you choose. For my personal scanning of family photos, I will not go below 600 dpi.
If you are scanning prints, you will not see any difference between a TIFF and a JPEG at an 80%(that would be about a "Best #10") quality or above setting. In fact you can have a smaller file size scanning at a higher dpi with JPEG and it will give you an original that has for all practical purposes all of your important detail information. When you open up this high dpi JPEG you can then resize it for other specific purposes as AlphaDog mentioned. I will the resave these work(ing) files as TIFF or Photoshop layer files because I will continue re-saving every 10 to 20 minutes of work I am doing.
I often deliver JPEGs via the web, once all of my work is done on multi layered huge photoshop files. My clients will then convert my JPEG files back to TIFF to work on them some more if need be.
In other words 1 or 2 generations of high quality, high dpi JPEGs look great.
If you are talking about saving an original from a high end digital camera, that's a different story because there is only one professional option and that is shooting and saving RAW files because they contains much more information (wider dynamic range) than a print and they are already less compressed than a TIFF. I have not worked with Adobe's universal raw DNG format but it might be worth looking into if you want the most versatile archival format for your digital originals.
http://www.adobe.com/products/dng
The bottom line is that you should do a test and see for your self what the results look like on the highest detailed most color diverse image you have.
If you are scanning prints, you will not see any difference between a TIFF and a JPEG at an 80%(that would be about a "Best #10") quality or above setting. In fact you can have a smaller file size scanning at a higher dpi with JPEG and it will give you an original that has for all practical purposes all of your important detail information. When you open up this high dpi JPEG you can then resize it for other specific purposes as AlphaDog mentioned. I will the resave these work(ing) files as TIFF or Photoshop layer files because I will continue re-saving every 10 to 20 minutes of work I am doing.
I often deliver JPEGs via the web, once all of my work is done on multi layered huge photoshop files. My clients will then convert my JPEG files back to TIFF to work on them some more if need be.
In other words 1 or 2 generations of high quality, high dpi JPEGs look great.
If you are talking about saving an original from a high end digital camera, that's a different story because there is only one professional option and that is shooting and saving RAW files because they contains much more information (wider dynamic range) than a print and they are already less compressed than a TIFF. I have not worked with Adobe's universal raw DNG format but it might be worth looking into if you want the most versatile archival format for your digital originals.
http://www.adobe.com/products/dng
The bottom line is that you should do a test and see for your self what the results look like on the highest detailed most color diverse image you have.