File type

[Colin Ember 1947]

What type of file is best for use with PSP 2018

[bruce1951]

To take advantage of all the PSP features you really need to save as PSPImage files.

You can always flatten the image and save it as something else later.

regards

[hartpaul]

That is the $1.000 000 question. Opens up a lot of cans of worms.

Best for PSP 2018???? Should you not instead be asking what file is bet for various other purposes .

You don't make images to suit the graphics program, you make images to satisfy yourself , then to satisfy your clients / purposes for which you created your images.

And are you talking about photographic images which would probably be best for grandma / great grandma as a printed photo or are you talking about graphic images that would suit scrapbooking , advertising, micro stock agencies.

Photographic images are generally produced in camera and saved as either a raw file suitable to that particular camera , or a jpg image.

Some photographers are dissatisfied with the way PSP handles raw files and so may use a specialist raw converter - the camera producer's free raw program such as Canon's Digital Photo Professional, or Adobe Lightroom or Corel's Aftershot Pro.

To avoid losses of detail they are then saved as tif files which are uncompressed or not as much as jpgs which can lose a lot of information.

These files can then be loaded into PSP 2018 and processed further to produce for saving -

- pspimage files which store layers and can be a temporary store when you are doing a long series of changes and need to stop but don't wan to lose any detail .
- jpg files which are usually a finished product whic can be accepted by web pages, some mini labs for printing to produce hard copy prints.
- tif files which preserve the highest quality but usually not layers for further processing and also for printing
- png files again used for some graphics on web pages, or for further processing that requires part of the image to be transparent.
- gif files that can be used in graphics and advertising and for printed brochures.
... and lots of other types that can have further specialist requirements.