The battle between space, quality and perfection has been raging in my head (and on my hard drives) for about 15 years now. When I first started scanning and archiving my images, I HAD to compress them because my available space was limited and CD-ROM blanks cost $100 each. Now that my space isn't so limited, I still use JPG compression (at a less severe level) to archive my images.
Here's an argument supporting JPG over PNG for color photographs: http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/misc/jpg_vs_gif/JpgCompTest/JpgForArchive.html Here's a fairly objective page about PNG: http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngintro.html As for keeping the information about the images WITH the images, I'm all for that! I have been using comments in JPEG files since the beginning. I took great pains for several of those early years in putting the comments into the images as they were scanned so that I wouldn't have to recompress them and degrade them in the process. Now however, I've become lazy and I resort to structuring my directories and placing like images in categories in this way. I only get ONE choice this way, but with my digital camera and its resulting thousands of images (and videos), this is as far as I choose to go. I still use ThumbsPlus (http://www.cerious.com) to search for images (by text as well as visually). In addition to IPTC and EXIF, its database can use both the internal comments, the directory structure, and more (filenames, attributes, etc.) as keywords. I attach a few photographs to people in Legacy so that they can be displayed on printouts, and as I browse through the trees, etc., but I have no intention of doing so with all of my images and see no need for Legacy to attempt to do much more than it currently does at this point. ...Doug -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John D Taylor III Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2005 8:26 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [LegacyUG] IPTC vs. EXIF IPTC & EXIF both offer comment sections to include details regarding the pictures. Legacy is not able to recognize either of these features in pictures. It does not automatically place the descriptive fields into the description area of Legacy's picture link . . . so there is no advantage in using one format over the other in Legacy. I'd prefer to keep my pictures in a .png format versus the .jpg format simply because of the png format been able to maintain the original pixels in the picture without degradation. However, .jpg has long been established for recognizing both the IPCT and the EXIF features that will store information in a picture. I realize that PNG is supposed to be the new and upcoming format to replace both the GIF and the JPG. Nevertheless, PNG does require a slightly larger file size then either the GIF or the JPG, and does not seem to be taking off in popularity as well as many thought that it would. The EXIF was more suited to record the camera information while the IPTC was designed to store the information recorded by the writer or journalist information that would remain with the picture. I find myself going back and forth, trying to decide if I want to go with PNG or JPG for working with my pictures in legacy. I know that I definitely want to deal include all the relevant information regarding the picture, including any historical information I may have, and that will require that I use a file format that works with either the IPTC or the EXIF functions. I definitely do not want to keep a copy of the pictures in both formats - I don't want the redundancy. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? John Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/ To unsubscribe please visit: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp
