There are many file formats that we often hear while discussing photography. Its widely known that many Commercial photographers shoot in RAW mode, some novices shoot in Jpeg + Raw and some in Jpeg.

Professional cameras offer an option to shoot images in various formats. The formats are widely used for various reasons. Lets understand which format is widely used by photographers and why? In this article we will also try and explain you what format one must store the pictures on the computers and use for sharing purposes.

While capturing pictures in the Camera

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
– This format may be the industry regular for compressing pictures destined for the Global Web (www) or for hard drive if space is limited.

JPEG data compression uses a ‘lossy compression’ (photo data and quality are sacrificed for smaller sized file sizes when the graphic files are usually closed). The person is able to control the quantity of compression. A high level of compression results in a lower level of quality picture and a smaller file size. A low level of compression setting results in a higher quality image but a larger file size. It’s commended that you simply save into the JPEG file format for web work and also only when you have completed all of your image editing.

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) – This file format may be the industry standard for graphics destined for publishing (magazines plus books). TIFF uses a ‘loss-less’ data compression (no loss of image info and also quality) named ‘LZW compression’. Although protecting the quality of the graphic, LZW compression is just capable of compressing images a smaller amount.