All About File Formats

Mr. Butler

John Jay High School

Department of Technology

Why Study File Formats?

Important to recognize which formats should be used with the appropriate task

Your not wasting your time spending hours working in the wrong file format

Help understand the different file formats and help you choose the right one for each project

Native file formats

Native file formats

When you save a document in the same format as the program you’re working in. Ex. If you save a Photoshop image as a

Photoshop file (instead of as a TIFF of JPEG).

Non-Native file formats

The type of file formats that each software program can create or accept

Sometime you cannot open new files in old programs Ex. Using Microsoft Word XP at school

and trying to open it at home using Microsoft Word 98

Non-Native file formats

Exporting or saving as non-native file formats Export a file or Save As with a different

name and format

Importing and opening non-native file formats Importing – bringing a non-native file into an existing

page of an application May also be called insert, Get Picture, Place

Open – just as if it was its own native format, some programs may just open it!

File Formats that Photoshop can open on a Mac

TIFF files

TIFF files

TIFF is an acronym for Tagged Image File Format

Is a raster (bitmapped) file format Almost every raster program, such as

image editing or paint programs, can save as TIFF’s and can be import TIFF’s

TIFF is also the best format to use between Windows and Macintosh.

Scanning as TIFF

TIFF was originally created for scanning

LZW compression

Compression means the information in the file is squished so the file takes up less disk space.

There are two generic types of compression: Lossy – some data in the files is lost Lossless – no data is lost during compression

LWZ stands for Lempel, Ziv, and Welch (the three creators of compression)

EPS files (vector)

Encapsulated PostScript

DCS files

DCS files

The DCS format is an acronym for Desktop Color Separation

DCS was developed by Quark to allow programs to read CMYK files correctly.

PICT files

PICT files (Macintosh)

PICT is short for “picture” Created by Apple for images on the

first Macintosh systems A PICT file can contain both vector

and raster information

BMP files

BMP files (Windows)

Windows has a BMP format (windows Bitmap)

BMP files are primarily used to create the wallpaper images that fill the background of the Windows screen

WMF files (windows)

The WMF stands for Windows Metafile Is a vector format for use on the

Windows platform Should only be used with multimedia

programs (only when needed)

GIF files

GIF file format

GIF is an acronym for Graphical Interchange Format

Pronounced “gif”, not “jif” because it stands for “graphical”

GIF format can be displayed on any computer

GIF was originally created by CompuServe Online for transferring images online

GIF file format

GIF images are found everywhere on the World Wide Web

GIF image must use the Index color mode, which has a maximum of 256 colors (8-bit)

PNG files

PNG file format

PNG is an acronym for Portable Network Graphic

Pronounced “ping” Similar to GIF PNG files can support 24-bit color

(millions of colors) and transparency without jagged edges

JPEG files

JPEG files

JPEG is an acronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group

Pronounced “jay peg” JPEG is a compression format that

makes images into smaller files JPEG is a lossy compression Many stock photo companies save their

images with JPEG compression

PDF files

PDF files

PDF is an acronym for Portable Document Format

It is a compression scheme that embeds, right within the file

All the necessary information to view a single document is present: Text, images, page breaks, fonts, etc.

Any Questions

Take a moment and finish up any blank questions on your notes sheet.