Digital Prints

JPEG2000 supposedly has the highest image quality per compression ratio, but it’s been
in the works since 1998, and as of this writing, has barely made its presence known (as an
optional plug-in in Photoshop CS). Other specialty compression options include wavelet
compression (LuraWave, Wavelet Image) and fractal compression (MrSID), both of which
offer high compression along with high image quality.
CAUTION! While it’s fine to print from JPEG, avoid opening a JPEG file and resaving it in
the JPEG format. Depending on the quality setting, you will loose data each time, and if you
keep doing it, you could end up with a bowl of digital mush. The best thing to do is open a
JPEG and immediately Save As to a TIFF or a native image-editing format.
File Transport, Storage, and Archives
The image files that photographers and artists create tend to be large. No, huge is a better
word. I can still remember working with files in the late ’80s that were in the five or
ten megabyte range. Those were big files then. Now, I regularly work with files that exceed
200+ MB! Like dust balls, image files constantly accumulate, and when they’re also large,
they can become a problem when you have to take or send them somewhere, or when you
want to store and archive them for the future.
Transporting
If you need to get an image file to someone, you have three basic choices: send it electronically
(e-mail, FTP), drop it in the mail or call FedEx, or get in the car and take it
yourself. If you’re sending it electronically, you could use one of the lossless archiving utilities
such as StuffIt (Mac) or Zip (PC); just make sure that the person on the other end
has the same program, or they may not be able to open it (self-extracting archives are
another answer for those who don’t have the program). JPEGs are also a possibility if made
with high compression settings.
Chapter 3 ■ Creating and Processing the Image 111
Figure 3.23 A low-resolution digicam
image as an uncompressed TIFF (left),
with, from top, medium to low JPEG
compressions. The “0” (lowest) quality
shows obvious compression blocks.