The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 52 No 2 July 2013

Up the MB path
Byte me!
Elisa Bartels unravels the mysteries of editing and sending images
There is no getting away from the fact that in this digital era the image rules. We submit images for
competitions, grant applications and magazine articles, and to stockists and art directories; the list
goes on. A great image can propel you to the 'front of the queue' and, sadly, a poor image will see a
beautiful piece of work relegated to the rear.
Once it was simpler: you took a photo, used the negatives to make additional prints or slides (aahh
remember slides ...) and these were dutifully mailed off to whatever organisation you were looking to
for attention. Fast forward to the present ... and whilst taking a great image has never been easier, the
stumbling block arises when we have to send these digital images via the net, by disc, or upload to a
file-sharing site.
So let's wander up the image path scattered with words such as JPG, 'raw' files, TIFF, DPI, PPI, MB, KB
and GB.
Your Camera
Refer to your camera manual for information on image size and image quality. The most common
setting chosen for image size would be 'large' and for image quality, 'JPG fine' or 'JPG normal'. A
large JPG file will give you a good size image for most purposes. A jpg is a compressed file achieved by
dividing the picture into tiny pixels, or dots of colour. These dot/pixel blocks are measured per inch and
that's where the acronyms dpi (dots per inch) and ppi (pixels per inch) come in. These blocks are halved
over and over until the desired amount of compression is achieved. The term DPI is used when printing
an image, but PPI is the more correct term and is used when referring to the number of pixels per
square inch in an electronic image.
A raw file is different to a JPG file in that there is no compression of pixels. It will be a large file, so
fewer images can be taken and saved on your camera. If you camera is set to 'raw', it captures every
single colour variation in the image and each is given its own pixel. Because of the large file size, raw
image capture is mainly used for taking photos of objects in a studio for immediate download to your
computer.
TIFF image capture is rarely an option in digital cameras. A TIFF file is usually encountered as an option
for saving an image in photo imaging programs such as Photoshop. A TIFF file saves the changes you
make to the image. TIFF files can be compressed but the file size still tends to be much bigger than a
JPG. The TIFF format is often the preferred format for storing post-processed images on a computer. Do
not email TIFF files as they are usually way to big to send. The best way to share a TIFF file is via a filesharing
site.
90 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS JULY 2013