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PNG or TIF?
Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:25 am
by w i l l
I remember being told that it's best to save as a PNG from mxcl. I get the impression though that TIF is regarded as higher quality in photography. Which is best to use?
Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 3:56 am
by Bubbaloo
hdr
hdr is saved as 32 bit while png and tif are saved as 8 bit.
Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:18 am
by msantana
What about TGA? Is there any advantage to using TGA (other than smaller file size) when saving more than 8 bits of info per channel?
Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 2:05 pm
by -Adrian
Not over PNG i think. I love PNG and use it for anything but HDR content. It's great for lossless compression and web usage.
Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 5:31 pm
by w i l l
-Adrian wrote:Not over PNG i think. I love PNG and use it for anything but HDR content. It's great for lossless compression and web usage.
But isn't TIF uncompressed (optionally) - so better quality?
Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 5:54 pm
by -Adrian
I was responding to msantana (TGA).
Regarding compression: So long the compression is lossless, it doesn't matter.
I found TIFF to be particularly incompatible with most applications, so i always chose PNG and TGA over it. But that's the only reason.
As Bubbaloo said, save Maxwell renders to HDR for postwork. I believe it can also get rid of the gradient banding issues in some cases.
Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 6:09 pm
by Thomas An.
PNG is the best in my opinion. It is losslessly compressed for small size without quality compromises (unlike JPG)
Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 5:27 am
by Rickyx
-Adrian wrote:Not over PNG i think. I love PNG and use it for anything but HDR content. It's great for lossless compression and web usage.
+++1
W Png.
Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 7:30 am
by RonB
Tiff sucks... There are a many different "tiff" formats and it seems about everybody has their own. You never really know what a tiff image is bringing in the backdoor with it. Some carry camera data and some carry scanner data and other stuff, not that it hurts anything really...just not needed is all. Tiff is like a special plant that is grown in a specific greenhouse and each greenhouse has their own variety...and somehow they all got loose and have become weeds in the digital imaging landscape. I spent about 5 years doing nothing but image prep and retouching at a highend imaging service that I co-owned. I stay as far away from using tiffs as I can.
I agree with Thomas, Ricky, and -Adrian, PNG's are very cool. I also agree with Bubba about HDR's. In near future we will all be operating on much higher levels as we move into 32 bit as the norm. The monitors are in the works now. Cheers, Ron