Scanning paintings (1 Viewer)

Is it better to save scanned paintings as bitmaps or JPEG's? Which gives the best reproduction quality?

Bitmaps are better.

Always save as a TIFF or TIF file, you can then open them in any graphics software you like. It's easy to convert a TIFF file to a JPEG or a BMP. TIFF (TIF) is a lossless universal reproduction standard graphics format. Bitmaps are usually used by Windows for it's graphics, not very good for everyday use! Nearly all the publishing houses use the TIFF format by choice, if you are submitting scans or digital images for reproduction in a book or glossy magazine the editor will nearly always ask for TIFF files where possible. JPEG files are not lossless, that is each time you open a JPEG and then close it again, it loses some quality. It's best to save your original scans or digital images as large TIFF files, (larger the better) and make JPEG copies from the original if you need them for the web or lower quality printing.

nirofo.

Agree with nirofo re Tiff files - as a graphic designer all the work I handle will be either created or supplied as a TIFF for quality reasons - JPEG files are classed as lossy which means that some information is lost when the original image is converted to this format but they don't lose any further quality each time they are opened.

Thanks everyone. Tiff files it is then