FWIW, I don't agree with storing image data, I don't think they justify the cost of storage even remotely (some people debate the value of the structures themselves....)...but if you want to do it anyway, maybe we should use a format like jpeg2000.
Last time I checked, none of the major image processing suites used it, but it is a very impressive and mature format that (I think) would be suitable for diffraction images. If anyone is up for experimenting, you can get a nice suite of tools from kakadu (just google kakdu + jpeg2000).
