Best method for saving TIFF's - LZW or ZIP?

Paul_Graham · #1 08-22-2005, 07:14 PM

I'm looking for the most space efficient lossles way to save my Tiff files (with layers usually).

on reading Bruce Fraser's ACR book I noticed in his screen saves that he was using ZIP option on the TIFF saving selection. anyone else using this? - is it safe and lossless, or should I be using LZW?

what do people recommend to stop storage getting out of control?

brucefraser · #2 08-22-2005, 07:22 PM

Zip is lossless, and more efficient than LZW. The only downside is that many TIFF readers other than Adobe products don't understand it (yet).

Paul_Graham · #3 08-22-2005, 07:27 PM

thanks Bruce,

your recommendation is good enough for me.

MathewLodge · #4 08-22-2005, 07:28 PM

I like Zip for the file size, but like Bruce says, not many apps outside of Photoshop support it. It just made my workflow more complicated (e.g. I use a tool outside of Photoshop to add IPTC keywords and it doesn't support Zip TIFFs), so I went back to LZW.

JPEG2000 can be lossless, and is even more efficient than Zip. And even fewer apps support it than support Zip TIFF, so I passed it up too... :-(

Mathew

Michael_Fontana · #5 08-22-2005, 07:32 PM

I use the opportunity to ask about the pixelorder in the saving dialog/TIFF-options:

interleaved (RGBRGB) vs each channel (RRGGBB) -
whats the difference?

brucefraser · #6 08-22-2005, 08:19 PM

Per channel is faster and more compact when used in conjunction with ZIP compression. Again, not widely supported outside of Adobe apps.

Michael_Fontana · #7 08-23-2005, 07:45 AM

Thanks Bruce

that's actually provocing a bit of headache to me: I can't really know, where my picts will go to be printed, and I'm absolutely not interested to receive - the printing machines already running - a call saying "guy, we can't open your file xy"

Everbody knows, PS ist the leader, but this is out of control of the photographer's hand. The printing industry - in my experience - isn't to keen to use advanced technology, welcomed by the photographers. Just have a look how a good parths of the prepress people handle Color Management [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

Therefore I've to stuck witz LZW and RGBRGB....