Re: TIFF or JPEG??

Posted by Kenneth Sloan-2 on
URL: http://imagej.273.s1.nabble.com/TIFF-or-JPEG-tp3696781p3696785.html

On Mar 21, 2008, at 12:36 PM, Gabriel Landini wrote:

> On Friday 21 March 2008, RES08 wrote:
>> Hello, im extremely new to using imagej and i was just wondering  
>> if it is
>> better to use images saved as TIFFs or JPEG? At the minute the  
>> images im
>> using are saved as JPEGs on the camera and computer, however  
>> before using
>> them in imageJ i save them as TIFFs!
>
> Point 4 in here tells you why one should not use jpegs in image  
> analysis:
> http://imagejdocu.tudor.lu/imagej-documentation-wiki/faq/what- 
> should-i-do-before-start-using-imagej-in-my-project
>
> If you already have jpegs, your images are already lossy and the  
> only solution
> is to grab images again.
>
> Cheers
>
> Gabriel

This is conventional wisdom among those of us who endured low  
resolution, low quality images of the past.  Without knowing more  
about the application, the imaging setup, and the objects being  
imaged, it's impossible to say.

As a general rule, if you are treating your images as collections of  
pixels which happen to be packed together in a fairly arbitrary way,  
then tiff will be better than jpeg.  If, on the other hand, you are  
analyzing large scale structures, then jpeg *may* be appropriate.

--
Kenneth Sloan                                          
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