Uncle Roger's Notebooks of Daily Life

Digicams and File Types

My earlier post about converting photos generated some confusion: "I thought all you had to do with that kind of camera was plug it into the computer somewhere." Well, yes and no. The short answer is that yes, all you need do is plug in the camera (or insert the memory card into a reader) and copy the photos onto the computer. If you're interested in the long answer, read on.

Digital Photos are generally stored as JPEG files. This is a pretty universal format and gives you the most flexibility in terms of what you can do with a digital photo. You can view it on your computer, have it printed by a photo lab, put it on a CD to put in your DVD player and see it on your TV, and more. Dang handy format.

Except that JPEG uses lossy compression. That means that, in order to save disk space, it's scrunched up and the unimportant bits are removed. Before you get too worried, depending on the amount of compression used, this is still as good, for all practical intents and purposes, as any other format. It's similar to the problems with audio CD's -- if you can hear the difference between a CD and an analog phonograph record, then you've got some special ears; for most people CD-quality is great.

So, for most people JPEG is perfect. But then you get wackos like me... The way I see it, I didn't pay top dollar for a (at the time) top-of-the-line camera just to take lower quality pictures than it is capable of. So I take all my pictures in the camera's RAW format. That's simply a dump of what the sensor sees, bit by bit, with no processing or anything. And no compression. This gives the highest quality for the smallest files (as opposed to TIFF, which is a whole 'nother post).

The downside to RAW files is that they are proprietary to the camera and therefore virtually useless without the manufacturer's own software. (Or some of the high-end, very-expensive products like Photoshop.) To get the best of all worlds, therefore, I take pictures in RAW format, load them onto the computer, and convert them to JPEG's. This way, I have the original data as well as the more useful format.

Related Links Wikipedia: JPEG IrfanView

[ Posted: 18:00 | home | print ]

Be careful of what you ask for Ann. Seriously, that was perfectly clear this time around and the one thing I recognized on your first posting was JPEG because that's what my photos are (all but one - somehow it came out in something that takes forever to load.) I must fix it sometime. I understand wanting something to be right and not half-assed and being willing to go to great lengths to get it. Thanks for taking the time to explain. If you're ever interested in what I look like (or did 7 years ago), check out granny sometime.

Posted by Ann Adams

Afterthought - isn't there always?

I have a couple of posts on granny, complete with an ancient sepia photo, as well as a more recent one, about my great-uncle, the violin maker. My dad and his dad (my Uncle Jim's younger brother) were both carpenters who either built or almost totally redid the 2 houses I lived in growing up. They were to banisters and cabinets what my Uncle Jim was to violins. They had an attention to detail that wouldn't settle for less than the best they could do. My mom was the same way with sewing. Perfect, fnished seams. Her garments looked almost as good inside out. We seem to have lost that striving for perfection somewhere. Lord knows it missed me totally. Everything's about speed and getting on to the next thing on the list. I don't long for the 40's and 50's but there are some things that might have been worth hanging onto. Your explanation of the reasons for not just plugging a camera into a computer reminded me of them.

Posted by Ann Adams