> The suitable formats are different for different types of images. There is
> no ideal format at present for, for example, digitised photographs. TIFFs
> created using one type of software are unreadable by another type of
> software. BMPs are impractical because of their size. JPEGs can distort
> and
> lose detail.
BMPs are uncompressed and therefore impractical and JPEGs compression is
'lossy' (ie it loses some information in the process of compressing the
image data.)
I have to take issue with the poor, maligned, misunderstood TIFF though.
The TIFF standard is very flexible which allows for TIFFs of slightly
different formats to be produced, all of which conform to the published
standard. The standard allows for a variety of compression algorithms,
data layout, bit formats but any good reader should be able to read any
TIFF. The problem occurs when a program only reads a TIFF of the exact
format that it writes - this is bad. Any standard conformant TIFF reader
can read any standard conformant TIFF.
I've written many TIFF readers and writers and haven't yet come across an
unreadable TIFF.
TIFF standard: http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/PDFS/TN/TIFF6.pdf
A good TIFF reader: http://www.imagemagick.org/
Andrew
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