This is a subject which I 'm struggling a little to get my head around. Faced with a choice of 8-bit JPG, 8-bit TIF or 16-bit TIF are there any compelling reasons as to why I should one use one format over another?
I normally use a high quality JPG to save my images but having blown up all three types in Photoshop I can't see any real difference, other than the obvious larger file sizes produced by the TIF's. I've looked around on the web but haven't had much luck so thought someone on RR might be able to enlighten me.

• Andy

TIF stores all the available color information as it was saved (or converted from RAW) by your camera.
What JPG does, is try to compress (or reduce) the color information by making average color calculations of every pixel and its adjacent pixels, throwing out as much non-average color pixels as possible while trying to visibly retain the same look.
At first sight, you may not see the difference. That difference becomes apparent when you repeatedly save a file. The TIF file will always retain its full color information; the JPG file will throw out color information every time you save it. After saving the same file five or more times as a TIF and as a JPG, you will see the difference.
That's why it's a good idea to always save (a copy of) the original file in TIF format (or another lossless format) as your starting point.

Another result of this is that JPGs or generally used for the web, while for four-color (CMYK) process printing TIF files will be used.

What girsempa said above is absolutely right AFAICT. Sounds like he knows what he's talking about. :-D The one advantage JPEG gives you (IMO, AFAICT, etc) is that it allows you a lot of control over the file size. That's important for things you want to put on the internet if you don't want people on a slow connection to wait for the image to load for ages. But as long as you just want to save a copy for your own future use TIF or RAW should be your friends. :-) If you want to look into the details, I think some wikipedia articles are actually pretty good, if you ignore the technical and mathematical stuff (which always make my head spin).

I think I understand a little better now, lol. I think a better workflow for me would be initial process of  RAW (in Bibble)and save as TIF,  tweak in Photoshop (if need be) and save as JPEG and if I need/want to play with the image in photoshop again go back to the TIF file.

My old camera didn't shoot RAW so I automatically did everything with JPEG's, now I know better. Thanks for the tips guys.

Attached Link: "Have you ever noticed...." (an earier thread that touched the same issues)

File formats

Back in June of this year, we had a discussion about image file size which
led to some comments about file compression.  Please take a look. 

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Martin