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Knowing which image type to use ensures you can make the most of your digital photographs. Some image types are best for getting an optimal balance of quality and file size when storing your photos, while other image types enable you to more easily recover from a bad photograph. Countless image formats exist and new ones are always being added; in this section we will focus on options related to the two of the three formats most relevant to digital photography: JPEG and TIFF. The RAW file format is covered in a separate tutorial.
submitted: 5 years and 3680 days ago
The RAW file format is digital photography's equivalent of a negative in film photography: it contains untouched, "raw" pixel information straight from the digital camera's sensor. The RAW file format has yet to undergo demosaicing, and so it contains just one red, green, or blue value at each pixel location. Digital cameras normally "develop" this RAW file by converting it into a full color JPEG or TIFF image file, and then store the converted file in your memory card. Digital cameras have to make several interpretive decisions when they develop a RAW file, and so the RAW file format offers you more control over how the final JPEG or TIFF image is generated. This section aims to illustrate the technical advantages of RAW files, and makes suggestions about when to use the RAW file format.
submitted: 5 years and 3680 days ago
High dynamic range (HDR) images enable photographers to record a greater range of tonal detail than a given camera could capture in a single photo. This opens up a whole new set of lighting possibilities which one might have previously avoided—for purely technical reasons. The new "merge to HDR" feature of Photoshop CS2 allows the photographer to combine a series of bracketed exposures into a single image which encompasses the tonal detail of the entire series.
submitted: 5 years and 3680 days ago