Friday, October 23, 2009

The 3 Top File Formats For Photoshop - Which Is Best?

By Jeanene Fisher

As you have become more familiar with Adobe Photoshop, have you noticed that the program allows you to save your images in several different formats or types of files?

An understanding of these three different formats is necessary when working in Adobe Photoshop. With this knowledge, you will be able to make the most of your digital photo projects.

Many different types of image files exist; here are the most common ones used in Photoshop.

PSD: This is the most important file format for digital photo editing. A PSD file is a Photoshop file format. There are two main reasons for using PSD when working on your digital photos. To begin with, PSD files allow you to work in layers and channels. This saves your work without compressing the layers. This does result in a large file size. Secondly, PSD files do not lose their image quality as you work on them. Since there is no compression when the file is saved, there is no lost data. Save your work as a PSD file until you are finished editing your image. Then you can save it in a more appropriate file for each particular project.

A well known and commonly used file is JPEG. This stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. As with many formats, files saved in JPEG are compressed, allowing for a smaller file. As with any compressed file, some data will be lost each time the file is opened, edited, and saved. JPEG files have the advantage of working quite well on the Internet and they come with a variety of applications.

GIF: Graphics Interchange format is popular for web use and other Internet applications. These files are typically small in size. Therefore, they load more quickly in Internet browsers. GIF files are limited to a maximum of 256 colors.

More file formats than we have listed do exist. They are not generally used very much and are not good for Internet use.

PSD files are the best way to save projects until you are finished with the editing. After that, use a JPEG or GIF file to save them.

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