Tif and Png? Just curious what's the preference and why.

[SyncroScales]

Tif and Png? Just curious what's the preference and why.

Hi.

The types of image formats I del with are jpg and tif. I like the common format (And kind of have to deal with it) and the lossless tif format. Png is also lossless (I just re-read it on wikipedia.org).

Just wondering about other peoples workflow or experiences.

Both have good tagging, but I think png has more.

Any recommmendations, advice or comments?

Does anyone know if files were being submitted: What tends to be asked for? I understand the management or customer would be specific.

Does anyone give their clients the tif files? Or usually jpg? Would tif be more money? I would assume there is not a cost difference at all since it probably wouldn't be a huge difference. But if there was a large batch, that takes longer, more energy used, more managing of the work, etc.

does any industry or kind of work prefer tif or png? Since this is photoediting, that's what I mean. But hey anything goes since image manipulation can span into many fields and can photos.

[df]

I use Tiff. PNG just never seems to come up. Mostly though I usually have a Tiff going into the program with a Jpeg coming out, if it's a tough edit I'll also save a PSPImage file at every major change (before merging 5 layers, before cloning out Uncle Bob, etc...). Unless the customer specifically asked for anything else it's all Jpegs. I may give some Tiff files if a customer asks for RAW files. Usually a customer wouldn't know what to do with a CR2, and by RAW they actually mean something that isn't touched up.

[LeviFiction]

As good as PNG is for photos you will most often see it being used for graphics on the web to replace the lower quality GIF format. It's animated version, APNG, has begun to catch on as well, though obviously very slowly. Mainly because it's so big as a result of being lossless. But TIFF and JPG are the most common for photo formats that might be requested because they are so well established for that purpose.

[Cassel]

It might not relate exactly to this conversation, but i heard that some people using Photoshop use TIFF to be a layered version, like psd files. Unfortunately, PSP will flatten tiff files. That is really too bad though.

[LeviFiction]

Yes, for whatever reason - maybe they can only license such a poor encoder/decoder - PSP does not always have the best support for file formats. Some can only be read in, some can only be read out and not all available features are included.

[Cassel]

At least, PSP can read and open psd files (while Photoshop cannot open psp files) which is a big advantage, but would be better if tiff was also treated the same way.

[LeviFiction]

Natively, yes, but even that is somewhat limited. And Telegraphics does have a PSP plugin for Photoshop...speaking of which.

Telegraphics has a few file format plugins you might find interesting if you're planning on using TIFF for all of your photography
http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/product/tifflibplugin

And, I haven't tried it, but supposedly a better PSD reader plugin. Makes me wonder if it'll work with PSP as well as it does for Photoshop.

[SyncroScales]

Thanks for the replys and link.

I don't understand what the telegraphics plug-ins would be for though. Are they scripts to cut down my actions into smaller commands?

Does PSP have these inside of it? (I know I download them from telegraphics, but shouldn't PSP have these steps within it?)

[LeviFiction]

File format plugins like these provide extra options and formats that don't originally come with the software. These plugins are meant to extend PhotoShop, though they should work in PSP. They were made to offer what the host program doesn't. Whether or not you will find it useful is anyone's guess but I thought I would throw it out there just in case.

While both PSP and PS offer TIFF they don't offer all TIFF options.

[SyncroScales]

I have been reading about "not having all the (file format) options". What does PSP not have (in relating to tiff)? I am just getting into the program, and have no idea what is not there. I can't export Tiff as an file - export - optimizer (jpeg, png, gif). I thought those plug-ins are for photoshop, I'll re-look, btu I am unsure if they will work in PSP. I assume so, since you psoted them.

Also, this is a different question: When I exit PSP and don't want to automatically save the files, how do I turn that off? I am concerned about some files being automatically saved when I am leaving. In general and right now when I am just trying stuff and not wanting to save at all. (It's that option that comes up and I can check or uncheck the save. I don't know if it's the fact I am using lots of layers.....

[LeviFiction]

First, I have to apologize for even making the suggestion. As I said originally I had not tried the plugin myself so I made no guarantees that it would be useful to you. It now appears to be only for MAC users and not Windows users. So there's no point in discussing it anyway.

But to answer your questions because you might find the information useful:

1) There are a lot of different compression and format options for TIFF that even Photoshop doesn't have. These are offered by a separate library known as TiffLib. On a MAC this plugin would offer the ability to use that library of formats inside of Photoshop to replace Photoshop's default TIFF exporter.

2) In PSP "export" is very close to the exact same thing as "Save As." It's not quite the same but it's similar. If you select "SaveAs" you'll get all of the same options for JPG, PNG, and GIF, by selecting the "Options" button at the bottom of the dialog. You'll see this same thing for TIFF options and so on. The slight difference between Export and SaveAs is that Export has fewer formats and the settings only apply when exporting. SaveAs settings only apply when using SaveAs.

3) Plugins for Photoshop may or may not work in PaintShop Pro. This is because a lot of programs, like PaintShop Pro, use the Photoshop plugin standard for their plugins. But they use a much older version that doesn't support as many options. So if the plugin has only been tested or designed for Photoshop it's unlikely it'll work with other programs. But sometimes plugins have special PaintShop Pro versions or only use commands that PaintShop Pro can also use.

So if you're interested in a plugin check to see if the developers have tested it in PSP. If they haven't you can still try it but be aware that if the plugins are designed for PS CS and higher then it's likely they won't work with PSP but try them anyway if you want them just to be sure.

4) Auto-Save and the dialog you're talking about are actually two different things. PSP has an auto-save option which creates a backup of your changes in case something goes wrong. It also has an Auto-Preserve option which creates a backup of the original image before you save over it just in case you didn't want to lose your original photo and accidentally hit "Save."

The dialog you're talking about is just a warning that you're about to close the program without saving your changes, people have done this accidentally and lost a whole day's worth of work as a result. So if you hit the "Close All" option you'll be fine. You just have to be deliberate in your actions.

One way to avoid saving over your images is to hit Shift + D when you first open them. Shift + D creates a copy of your image in the program, close the original and you'll be working on the copy. Now if you accidentally save the original image will be fine. This is a method that is often recommended anyway just in case.

[SyncroScales]

Thank you for this information. This will help a lot.

I have a lot to learn with this software. I viewed it a s a stepping stone to PS. But since some have commented here that they are professionals and don't need PS, I think for my money spent and the options: PSP is where it'[s at right now. Pluse the work can be used commercially (I emailed Corel, they said you pay for the license with the program). And Corel is Canadian, I live in Canada.

Plan to continue trying to get through that manual. Does anyone know if the printed manual has the same or less information than the help file?

Any other suggestions besides getting into that program and using it?

[dupontetchaussee]

Tiff is originally a Mac format, I think, and was immensely popular as graphics interchange format. I never use it and always resort to png if maximum detail is paramount, or jpg if it isn't. Among other defects, TIFFs are hated by programmers because most of the header definitions are poorly documented (some are even undocumented, leaving programmers to guess what a given header entry does, and the same header entry actually means something different for different tiff subformats...) which means that a tiff made in a program that uses a specific library might work for everyone except the poor sod who uses a program that relies on a different TIFF library. There have been plenty of examples in the past of such behaviour.
PNGs are also significantly smaller on average, meaning I save quite a bit of hard disk space too!

[LindaSue]

PNGs are also significantly smaller on average, meaning I save quite a bit of hard disk space too!

Plus, PNG files can contain transparency and translucency. I find that very useful for the kind of work that I do.

[LeviFiction]

TIFF was created by Albus, later acquired by Adobe, and was not specific to MACs. It's possible it was thought of that way because most desktop publishing and photo-editing was originally done on the MAC system and it is a very old format.

Also, BaseLine TIFF is perfectly safe to use and required by the specification for all TIFF viewers. Baseline came about because of TIFFs original flexibility and the trouble it caused. TIFF has been a lot more stabled since version 6 of the standard. Though the compression options with Baseline TIFF are limited, the most popular form of compression is either JPEG (lossy) or LZW (lossless) and are not included in the baseline specification.

Now I am not familiar with how EXIF is handled in TIFF so this may or may not be specific to PSP. However, one of PSPs drawbacks as far as TIFF goes is the inability to provide EXIF tags if you use one of the compression options in PSP. The only way to provide EXIF with TIFF is to save uncompressed which makes them quite a bit larger than PNG. But that only matters if you want to keep the EXIF.