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Hello Everyone!

I would like to take a few minutes to jot down a few things I know about file formats and what to use for electronically displaying and transporting your artwork. If anyone has further suggestions - or if I am just wrong on something I say here, feel free to comment. This is a learning experience for some and I know I am always open to learn something new as well.

If you are not working with Photoshop now, it s a really good idea to consider getting it. It is bundled with a program called "ImageReady" that is good for optimizing files for internet. It takes some time to understand these programs, but whatever you learn is just wonderful for working with your own files directly. I suggest a class in the program, and teaming up with someone who knows it as well.

EPS files vs. TIF files. An EPS file is an "Encapsulated Postcript" Outside of knowing the name, all I do know is that it was created by the Mac people for electronic photo files. Pretty much all platforms can import the files into programs - even if they cannot modify those same files.

TIF is a "tagged image file format" I don't know what that means but tif files are pretty versatile across platforms (IBM or MAC) and can be read and imported by most programs. A fundamental difference is that tif and eps files do read color differently - but a good color separater or printer (not desktop printer, professional printer from a print shop) knows this and either has the technology or the knowledge to head off any problems. Tif files are often smaller than eps.

GIF: a gif is used primarlily for display on internet. It is NEVER a good idea to send files in a gif format for printing - either desktop or professional. You can't control the color output and you can't control the resolution. Just a bad bad bad idea.

JPG: jpeg files are the most versatile files to date - but they do have some considerable drawbacks and should only be used when necessary. A jpeg file has the ability to really compress a file down to nothing. For example: I had a file yesterday that was 300 MEG. I compressed it as a standardized jpeg at a compression factor of 12 (the scale is from 1-12) and got a file of 57 MEG. When I further compressed that file down to a factor of 9, I got a file size of 9.6 MEG. Pretty impressive. BUT - you need to be aware that the lower the compression number, the more your file will show some strange pixelations and or "dirt" on the image.

Think of it this way: Your original file is like a piece of tin foil newly cut from the box. It has a smooth, almost blemish free surface. to jpeg that file is like taking that foil and scrunching it into a ball. The higher the compression (the lower the number, that is) the tighter the ball. Opening that file then, is like taking apart the ball - you will see some image distortion, noise, "dirt" pixelation on the image. Some of it you don't see until you are up close to it - but it is ALWAYS THERE!

The WORST thing you can do is to open a jpeg file and then recompress it into another jpeg. It is recompressing that image and thus - like re-scrunching the foil ball - creating more damage to that image. Always save a jpeg from your original.

Standardized jpeg is best for print files
Optimized jpeg is best for internet files.

After opening a jpeg - save it to a file format like eps and tif for storing.
300 dpi is always best for your images - that makes them versatile for print and internet (internet files are typically 72 dpi)
And by the way - I almost forgot!!!!! You can always go backwards from a 300 dpi file down to 72 dpi (called downsampling) but you can NEVER, NEVER NEVER go from 72 dpi to 300 dpi. It enlarges the image to blurry, or it just adds more data to the file - but not more information to the image. so storing images at a high resolution is always good. This higher, the better.

And that's basically it in a nutshell - I'm certain that I will think of something I forgot, so if you have questions, just contact me.

Always remember the tin foil - and you'll do just fine....

Laura Swink