Online Printing, to TIFF or not to TIFF ?

Muineach

hi all,

Well I just completed my nephews first communion, a total of 550 RAW files cut down to about 90 Photoshop/TIFF files. The original 550 RAW files were 3.5 gig and the folder size is not a whopping 16.5 gig, backup that on DVD

The question is, with a JPEG being 8/Bits per channel and a TIFF being 16/Bits per channel (when saving from a 16/Bit RAW, so 16/Bit all the way through processing), with more image data available would a TIFF at 16/bit's produce a better quality image than a JPEG at 8/Bit's (with everything else being equal, DPI, Resolution etc.) for printing ?

Just to clarify:
1. Take a RAW image
2. Save a 16/Bit TIFF
3. Save a 8/Bit JPEG
4. Print & Compare

I'm talking about online printers like pixmania, photobox etc., I've an account with pixmania and they do accept TIFF files. So would you only see the difference in a large format ? say A4+ or would you see it in A5 ?

My gut tells me that a 16/Bit TIFF would be better, just wondering if its noticeable ?

Then again they could just take the TIFF's and do a jpeg compression on them before printing ? It just I can't find the information I need on pixmania, still looking.

Oh bit more info, pixmania use:
Using the superior quality paper recommended by Fuji, Fuji Crystal Archive Supreme, and the superb Frontier 390 mini Lab printers; myPIX ensures all our customers receive perfect quality photo prints with fantastic contrast and colours.

So any ideas ?

My head hurts :rolleyes:

Thanks
Muineach

440Hz

You'll have some fun uploading a pile of TIFFs for online printing services!! Alot of professional printers request TIFFs, so that must be some indication I guess. I know I had to submit an A4 ad for a magazine yesterday and TIFF was the format they requested for their press. Having said that, in my personal opinion I think that is fine for professional work/publications but I dont think I would go to that effort for an online printing service. I dont know as I have not seen the results of TIFF printing from anywhere like pixmania or photobox but honestly I would not imagine the print quality would be that different from jpeg, or at least that noticeable. Personally, I think Id stick to a decent jpeg for online mass printing services.

DaireQuinlan

Any online printing service (photobox etc etc) , the first thing they will do, if they even allow you to upload tiffs in the first place, is convert them to jpg/srgb and then print, so for upload purposes there's no point. there's a couple of reasons to store them yourself in 16 bit tiffs, but once you've gotten to the point of a finalised image that you want to get printed, there's really no point not to transform it into whatever the desired format is for upload. The advantage of that 16 bit tiff is that its your 'digital negative', and more amenable to editing for whatever output you want to get out of it.

Muineach

Thanks all, you've confirmed my suspicions with the TIFF vs. JPEG printing, I didn't think it would that noticeable tbh, but just wanted to check before I run off a load of "film".
Hmm I'll think I'll get 2 A4's printed one from a TIFF and one from a JPEG and compare the two, just to be scientific , I'll let you know the results.

Thanks
Muineach

Roen

Muineach wrote:

Thanks all, you've confirmed my suspicions with the TIFF vs. JPEG printing, I didn't think it would that noticeable tbh, but just wanted to check before I run off a load of "film".
Hmm I'll think I'll get 2 A4's printed one from a TIFF and one from a JPEG and compare the two, just to be scientific , I'll let you know the results.

Thanks
Muineach

Great idea....will be waiting for the results of this one. I use Photobox, who only accept jpegs as far as I know. That's why I haven't done this already myself.

JMcL

I really don't think there's any point. TIFFs are good if you need to edit again afterwards, since they're non-lossy, but when you produce an image for printing JPEG should be fine. Bear in mind that printed images have a fairly low contrast range (100:1 or thereabouts I think, certainly wayyy lower than a monitor), and an 8 bit JPEG should have more than enough data to get a good result

Fajitas!

A2 and A1's need the Tiffs, otherwise you can (generally) get away with Jpegs, or I have been able to anyways. Jesus, I was getting top notch prints from my 300D's jpegs!

Calina

I have gotten excellent 20x30 inch prints out of jpegs so would say that you probably don't really need the tiff to print.