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Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
12
For important photos that you want to make into prints, it’s good practice to use
little or no compression. Or, if your camera offers it, you can take your photos in
a format, such as TIFF, that offers lossless compression. Lossless compression
reduces file size, but retains all of the photo quality.
File Formats
There are many file formats designed for photos or other digital images. Picture
It! can work with JPEG, TIFF, and many other file formats. If your camera
allows you to choose file formats for your photos, you can decide which format
to use based on your particular criteria: photo quality, file size, or compatibility
with other programs.
The JPEG format is the most common format for photos. JPEG files are
versatile, since they can accommodate over 16 million colors, can be com-
pressed, and can be viewed in any Web browser. To reduce file size, the JPEG
format always uses compression, although the degree of compression varies by
camera. Experiment with the compression settings on your camera to find a
low-compression setting that produces good or excellent results. Because JPEG
uses some compression every time a file is saved, many photo purists prefer
formats like TIFF over JPEG.
The TIFF format provides an extremely accurate recording of digital-image data.
Some cameras can use a lossless compression method with TIFF. But even with
some compression, TIFF files are generally larger than JPEG files for photos
with the same resolution. For example, a single uncompressed 5-megapixel
TIFF image is larger than 10 MB. To work with photos of that size, you need a
lot of memory on your computer, as well as a high-volume storage disk.
File formats
compatible with
Picture It!
Picture It! can open
photo files in any of the
following formats:
Adobe Photoshop
(.psd)
AutoCAD (.dxf)
CorelDraw (.cdr)
Enhanced Metafile
(.emf)
EPS (.eps)
FlashPix (.fpx)
GIF (.gif)
Home Publishing (.php)
JPEG (.jpg)
Kodak Photo CD (.pcd)
Macintosh PICT (.pct)
Micrografx Designer
(.drw)
PC Paintbrush (.pcx)
Picture It! (.php, .mix,
.fpx)
PNG (.png)
TIFF (.tif)
Targa (.tga)
Windows Bitmap
(.bmp)
Windows Metafile
(.wmf)