Image formats compared

Several formats can be used for storing images.

Tif is versatile format. The basic version is recognized by most software, is lossless, but offers no compression and the files are huge.
There are also lossy versions of tif. These are not recognized by most software and the compression and quality is not that great, so we will not show these here
jpg is the most widely used format. 100% jpg is about 8 times smaller than uncompressed tif and his has almost the same quality. 100% jpg has the highest quality, 1% jpg is the most compressed file with the lowest quality. The higher the quality, the sharper increase in file size. Jpg can only contain 24bits per pixel
jp2 is more modern than jpg. It has better quality for the same file size as jpg. Jp2 can even be set to lossless, then the file size is about 2/3 of tif. Jp2 keeps 48 bits per pixel.

The biggest problem for jpg is to show sharp lines without noise. We have selected as an example part of a scan of a poster, printed with silkscreen technique - that technique produces posters with sharp lines and without printing raster.

The most recommended formats for printing are 10_to_1 jp2 - they are high quality and small enough to be easily emailed. Make sure that Your software can read them.
100% jpg is also very good choice.
Lossless formats are good for those who can take advantage of them
Jpg from 99% to 80% are not as good as 100% jpg, but still good enough quality, and even much smaller size
Jpg lower than 80% are too rough. We show them just for comparison.

lossless.tif	1 734	KB
lossless.jp2	1 105	KB
10_to_1.jp2	229	KB
100.jpg	214	KB
99.jpg	155	KB
98.jpg	142	KB
97.jpg	115	KB
96.jpg	108	KB
95.jpg	108	KB
90.jpg	76	KB
80.jpg	52	KB
70.jpg	43	KB
10.jpg	30	KB
0.jpg	29	KB

Below is a graphical comparison of different file formats. The images are shown at 100% zoom. Unfortunately, some browsers cannot show tif nor jp2 images, so the best option for You is to download the images and compare them in Your computer. Zoom in to see the finest differencies.

Back to scans of Propaganda Posters

100.jpg 214 KB