The evidence that steered me away from JPG's came from past refereed journal publication experiences. My graphics drafting programs (Harvard Graphics:dates me, and SigmaPlot) could generate graphs with horizonatal and vertical lines that were razor sharp to the pixel. Regardless of the resolution viewed all the way down to 1 pixel per screen, they were dead straight edges.
The files were huge when saved as tif's less so but still large with bmp's, and uploading to publishers often over ran time limits. Jpg conversions reduced file size, but when brought back up all lines exhibited some bleeding (i.e. a thin band of gray along what used to be razor sharp black/white transitions). With large images and production reduction procedures, the end product was OK from jpg's, but not quite up to perfection. No amount of editing, short of erasing individual pixels could undo the jpg bleeding. I took to submitting CD's or DVD's to get around the upload issue.
In another note Cookie offered up some images to a state agency and a couple were choosen along with about 15 other submissions to enlage to poster size and decorate a big rig trailer. She saved her RAWS as TIF's (no file size reduction at all). The company doing the printing made special mention on delivery that her two images required absolutely no prep work or manipulations to get them up to specs. Every other image in a variety of formats cost them several hours of processing.
On the jpg's: I lost it in a unit crash a couple years ago, but a buddy gave me some software that could undo the building block effect often surfacing in over expanded (zoomed in) jpg images. The downside was it took my work station about 20 minutes to clean up a single 2,400 x 3,800 pixel image. It did a wonderful job, so jpg polishing can be done. In a production line, however, one could not afford the time.
Last edited by 1minute; 08/18/14.
