What file format? Saving proprietory RAWs uses up a huge amount of storage space and to be honest, is not hugely [emphasis mine] archival.
Honesty aside, why not?
Ones and zeros are used in all file formats. And storage is getting cheaper all the time.
Tiffs are 4 times the size.
With or without compression, Ben? If you look at the history of the
Tagged
Image
File
Format, it was designed for pre-press use where
maintaining maximum quality was the goal (TIFF was developed by Aldus, a company later inhaled by Adobe Systems). Lossless compression by LZW or other means makes for smaller file sizes with
zero loss of pixel information (some folk, such as me, were not enthralled when Adobe introduced JPEG compression to the TIFF specification—not in the spirit!)
Jpgs are small, small enough to be able to use cloud backup as secondry backup and to be honest with files which are mainly black text on white pages should not have a lack of information if they are the final result of proper processing, they are just text, they will not ever need further processing. However they are jpgs!
Hmmm; a lot of old works have stains, patina, wear etc. that would be lost if contrast and sharpening were to make them “black text on white pages”. Mosquito noise can still loom on contrasty edges if compression is too great.
One of the museums here has taken a radical approach of using jpgs as a file format for long term storage, what would your opinion be?
Radical? Expediency over quality is my guess.
JPEG is a
delivery format; it is lossy and not ideal for storage as a master. The main justification for keeping
RAW files is that they are true originals; anything rendered out, whether it be TIFF, PSD, PNG or [erk] JPEG is an
interpretation of the
unbiased original.
I think a viable option is to employ PSD, Photoshop’s native format; it has non-lossy compression and is optimised for use with Photoshop for fast opening and saving. But there is still the
interpretation scenario to consider. RAWs can often be compressed further by using ZIP or other technologies.