Hi Ray, On 08/01/2010, Ray Forma <[email protected]> wrote: > My current big concern is in what format to store my photo files. I > currently store them as uncompressed TIFF files, a format that has > been with us for a long time. Can anyone suggest a better format?
TIFF is a good format because it is publicly documented, has been in use for at least 20 years, can be read with open source software written in the C programming language (which has remained popular for 40 years and still underpins a vast amount of current software), and moreover it is basically a wrapper around "raw" image data. However, it's certainly not my favourite format, and because it's extensible, incompatibilities can creep in. A better format would may be PNG, which although being much newer, is in some regards the modern successor to TIFF. It's: - openly-specified - non-proprietary - patent-free - has been standardised by the ISO - is readable by open-source C software - is "lossless" - is already a pervasively-supported format on the world wide web <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics>. I believe that for these reasons, the National Archives of Australia converts TIFF images to PNG in their digital preservation software: http://www.naa.gov.au/records-management/secure-and-store/e-preservation/at-NAA/software.aspx I don't think you need to convert your TIFF files to PNG, nor need you start using PNG if you already use TIFF. But if you were creating your archives from scratch starting today, I think you would choose PNG as your format. Perhaps you could progressively convert TIFFs to PNGs during the natural cycle of re-archiving. Hope this has been informative, James -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:[email protected]>
