Common Photo File Formats Explained

First, let’s distinguish that photos are raster images. This means that the image is made up of little squares referred to as pixels. When you zoom in and look close you can start to see them. Each square is assigned a color. When you enlarge an image, you are just making those pixels bigger. You cannot improve a raster image by enlarging it. The photo is only as large as the original shot.Vector images are curves and lines created by algorithms. Your company logo should be a vector image. Since a vector is based on math rather than pixels, you can zoom in and zoom out and the image visually remains the same. It can be printed tiny on a business card or large on a billboard without any distortion in quality.

Common File Formats

JPG - All Around Winner

JPG or JPEG is the most common file format for cameras and images. It’s considered a “lossy” compression format that removes data from the image to balance the file’s size with image quality. There are sometimes settings you can change to create a smaller file or a more detailed file.

GIF - Better for Text or Images with Few Colors

A GIF is also a “lossy” file format. It creates a palette of 256 colors used to represent your image. This format is best utilized for images with limited color or image files with only text, as it tends to come out looking sharper.One bonus of a GIF is that it supports transparency. One useful example of this would be when adding your company logo to a poster as an event sponsor and not having a big white box around the logo.Another bonus to a GIF file is that it can hold multiple frames allowing for animation. A lot of those video memes you see online, or increasingly in text messages, are animated GIFs.

PNG - Luxury Model with Limited Use

A PNG file is considered “lossless” meaning that while the file is compressed in size, it doesn’t lose any of the data. This file format gives a more exact representation of the photo and its colors. Instead of the 256 color palette of a GIF, PNGs can utilize 16 million colors. This format is great if you need precise color representation or want to store a very memorable photo like your wedding photo. Like a GIF, it also supports transparency.

TIFF - Great for Extended Photo Editing

TIFF files can be large. This format isn’t great, or sometimes not even accepted for social media sites, but if you are using Photoshop or plan to do intricate editing to your photo then this format is for you.

RAW - For Professionals Only

High-end digital cameras can be set to capture images in the "lossless" RAW format. Editing a RAW photo file can feel like going back in time to the photo shoot itself and changing the aperture or exposure time. One big limitation is that this format can be specific to each camera maker limiting you to edit your photos in their proprietary software. These are extremely large files so unless you plan to use the format to its full potential it’s best to set your camera to JPG.

PDF - Best for Documents, Not Photos

Unlike the other formats, the name behind the acronym can shed some valuable light on its use. PDF stands for Portable Document Format, although the P could just as easily stand for Printer-ready or Preserved. The point of the PDF is to easily share a document across operating systems or devices without messing up the design or content. The format also locks the file to make it difficult to edit. While photos can be stored in this format, there’s really no reason to unless it’s accompanied by text in a document.

Questions?

We covered a lot of ground. If this article raises more questions, don’t hesitate to contact Edwin. We’re here to help!