Digital Conversions and File Types
Once an image is scanned it can be converted to any file format. Some of the formats used in digital imaging are:
| JPEG | .jpg is common on the internet. Some of the advantages: Small (compressed) file size. Displays thousands or millions of colors. Very common, variable compression scheme. Depending on saving, compression reduces quality of image. |
| GIF | .gif is very common on the internet. Advantages are small file size. Disadvantage is that image only displays 256 colors. |
| TIFF | .tif is not often used on the internet because file size is larger then JPEG. Tiff format however has no loss in quality and is used by many programs. Cross platform. Used for saving file for printing. |
| BMP | .bmp is the standard Windows image format. File size is large like TIFF and is rarely used on Macintosh computers. Works best with Windows programs. |
| PICT | .pct is a common Macintosh format. Rarely seen on Windows. |
| EPS | .eps is an encapsulated postscript format. Used by QuarkXpress and Illustrator. |
Most programs, including Illustrator and Office, can use all of the image formats mentioned above.