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Saving your images in photoshop is easy! Right ? A quick File>Save As, type the file name and location and away you go. Well not quite. The matter of choosing a format, which is as important as any other phase in the design process.

No doubt as a digital creative you’re familiar with the file suffixes ‘.jpg’, ‘.psd’ and ‘.tif’, among others. Yet each has its own purpose, designed for a specific function that enthusiastic creatives may not be aware of. There are also several unfamiliar and elusive options that can be applied to your saved files, which will undoubtedly benefit your storage facility. We now show you the purpose and performance of all the above, helping you optimise your file production.

PSD: Photoshop Format (PSD)

PSD is the default, and the only file format, besides the Large Document Format (PSB), that supports most Photoshop features. This Photoshop-specific suffix works best when applied to an image with large file capacity.

The file type preserves all layer and channel information so you can continually edit and adjust images. Because of the tight integration between Adobe products and applications, it’s useful for anyone importing images into InDesign, for example. Upon saving the PSD, users will be permitted to maximise file compatibility with the Layers command. This saves a composite version of a layered image so it can be accessed in other applications, maintaining blended layers’ integrity in the future.

TIFF: Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)

Tiff is designed to excel in cross-platform image sharing. Essentially a flexible Bitmap image format, this file type is accepted by virtually all paint, image­editing and page-layout applications. It comes with its own extended file options, as with the PSD files, including Image Compression, which composites image data. 32-bit files can be saved with predictor compression that rearranges floating-point values, working with both LZW and ZIP compression. The latter, however, may not be old TIFF Reader compatible.

Byte Order concerns the platform in which the image will be accessed. Photoshop, along with recent design applications, reads images using IBM PC or Macintosh byte order, so this can be valuable in the presentation of correct image quality.

Layer Compression specifies a method for compressing pixel data in layers. Using this option eliminates the need to manage a separate PSD file to hold layer data, although files that include layer data are larger.
Selecting the Discard Layers options aves all as a flattened image.

JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG)

Jpeg lets users save in CMYK, RGB and Grayscale, therefore supporting full colour palettes. This means when you save photographic imagery for web­based projects, this is a preferable suffix’ to use.

The JPEG compresses file size by selectively discarding data. Be aware that once the format is closed, re compression is applied, therefore adjustments should be done using the layered file to preserve image quality. It too comes standard with its own options, like the other file types. Image options specify picture quality by dragging the Quality slider and entering a value between 0 and .12. Format options specify file format. Baseline (’Standard’) is recognised by most web browsers, whereas Baseline Optimized creates a file with optimised colour and a slightly smaller file size.

Jpeg Problems

Some of you may encounter difficulties with applications unable to read CMYK files saved in the JPEG format. This may coincide with Java applications not reading your JPEG file in any Color mode. If this occurs, save files without a thumbnail preview activated.

PNG: Portable Networks Graphic (PNG)

PNG is a reasonably recent graphic addition to the suffix genus. Fundamentally created and applied to images designated for the web, this file format is used for loss less compression. Superior to the more traditional GIF, the PNG supports 24-bit images, producing background transparency minus jagged edges. It has two standard options, selectable from the Interlaced option dialog box.

The None command will display imagery in a browser only upon download. The Interlaced command will display low-resolution versions of an image within a browser as files download. This option makes for seemingly shorter download time yet increases file size. However, users beware! – not all web browsers support png. I use extensive PNG files on this website. Hence Internet explorer version 6 is not supported!

Tip :There is a time and a place for ZIP filing. Providing lossless compression and supported by PDF and TIFF file formats, this compression is in fact most effective with design and imagery that contains large areas of a single colour.