A quick guide to artwork formats
What do the File formats stand for?

TIFF is Tagged Image File format. Also abbreviated (.tif) Now widely used in Print formats because adopted by Aldus and Microsoft for compatibility scan format in 1970's (Mac and PC friendly. Can be RGB or CMYK colour based and offers high fidelity when correctly used i.e. colour profile and correct resolution applied. Larger file sizes are less of a problem now than they used to be. Can be loss less compressed using LZW (see below). Grayscale TIFFS can usually be spot 'coloured' within a DTP programs by the designer for colour match.

If your unsure about RGB or CMYK, LZW or even DTP perhaps take a look at our other page link of Camera terminology.

Other picture formats are too numerous to name but are usually 'proprietary' and used by the manufacturer for a specific purpose. A common one is jPeg (Joint Photographic Expert Group) which was designed reduce the image fill size. Can be prone to image degradation when over used. DCS, EPS, SYTEXT CT, PIXAR, PCX, TARGA and RAW each have a unique professional use feature.

PSD Photoshop Format. Adobe Photoshop is the de facto industry standard in image manipulation software. It can accept virtually all Camera image formats and has a wide variety of capability for ensuring image integrity.

PHOTOGRAPHY film. Not really a film format but a type of traditional film still widely used. The argument of wether Digtal is better than film (usually transparency E6) is an old one but it's worth recognising the limits of each. Film can yield greater detail and have a much lower and higher ASA rating (don't you love acronyms)! ASA is the film speed. Digital cameras are better at standard exposures settings and have the obvious advantage that they are digital. This negates 'scanning' which can cause a slight lack of definition and does not need any film processing. However Film at the high end still holds detail better.

If your unsure about ASA perhaps take a look at our other page link of Camera terminology.

ARTWORK DTP: Artwork is not necessarily DTP. (DTP stands for Desk Top Publishing used in virtually all Postscript Computer programs). Artwork existed centuries before DTP existed but is used to describe current digital page make up. It is still used by many application and illustration that can also be used i.e. scanned or manipulated or drawn by hand as in painted then scanned.

POSTSCRIPT is the primary function of DTP software and was developed by Rank Xerox in the 1960s and was adopted by the DTP pioneers (Aldus FreeHand and Aldus PageMaker) and is only licensed by Adobe who own the trademark and all functionality. Everything you read today (Newspaper and Books) has been through a PostScript enabled device.

ILLUSTRATION AI: A proprietary artwork format of Adobe Illustrator also used by Macromedia FreeHand (alias Aldus FreeHand). Both use scalable vector Graphics based on Postscript definitions of 'outline' and 'fill' shapes which define a logo or graphic image. Widely used for all graphic image line work and texts since.

ANIMATION SWF: A proprietary format of Macromedia 'Flash' used to animate illustrator layers found in FreeHand or Illustrator primarily but not exclusively followed by other programs that have a dedicated WEB functionality. Used for all animated graphics found on the internet. But not exclusively. The SWF format is widely supported 'plug-in' which most browser support, For this reason most video has adopted he self same format although not primarily designed for it, video seems to work well at the moment using this unanticipated format.

A relatively new format is SVG which is based on SWF.

TYPOGRAPHY Type 1. Not Typography but a font used for typography. All the initial FONTS used in DTP were type 1. For FONT read Typeface. For each typeface find Plain, Bold, Plain Italic and Bold Italic. In most fonts families you will have Roman (plain) and Bold but can be in different 'weights; such as Semi-bold etc. You can find today type 1, 2 and three as well as TrueType (developed by Apple and sold to Microsoft), OpenType font types (interpreted) which may or may not catch on. All fonts are designed by Designers such as Adrian Frutiger (German Public works) or Eric Gill (Gill Sans). It can be a real skill to match the font to the job in hand. Type 1 has the advantage of simplicity and will only work on Macintoshes.

INTERNET PAGES HTML: This is the standard page description of the internet web page and has developed from HTML 1 (as written by UK's 'Swiss physicist' Tim Berners-Lee) through to HTML 4. A typical web page is constructed from simple page codes that incorporate where texts and pictures are placed and reconstructed in the browser window. Pictures (jPeg) and Flash (SWF) and GIF(CompuGraphic Information Format) or PNG (Porable Network Graphics) are normally used with HTML construction.

I could add that much of the change in HTML 4 is adoption of CSS stylesheets and Javascript behind the scenes coding, but it is sligthly more involved.

PRINTING PDF: Although widely used the 'Portable Document Format' is a recent edition of the Adobe Postscript environment which closely renders the 'EPS' with an instant preview of the underlying EPS architecture widely used years before in DTP publishing. It is a widely supported format that can be 'locked' and even animated but it's primary function is to preview artwork before it goes to print. In the right conditions it can be extremely accurate but in the wrong hands completely unprintable. Most Mac and PC's can read and display a PDF and cannot normally be edited.

There are actually more than one type of PDF. Only PDF/x are currently approved for professional colour printing, but plain vanilla PDF is usually printable on standard cheap inkjet printers. PDF documents are widely used on the internet.

REPROGRAPHIC Film. Not to be confused with Camera Film. Repro film has a very low ASA typically 25 or lower and is always sharply defined black positive (or negative) and was the main source of printing plates until Digital (film less) or CTP film plates took over. Considered obsolete by many printers, it has the advantage of flexibility by some and cost effectiveness. Ironically digital CTP was sold on the pretext of cost effectiveness but is now more 'expensive', however all full colour work is now CTP. 'Computer-to-Plate Technology' being very widely adopted for speed and convenience by all colour printers.

Silk Screen printers rely on Reprographic film more than Lithographic Printers.

PHOTO MOVIE MOV. Digital film format widely used and invented by Apple Computers and constantly updated to the latest 'CODECS' in QuickTime. There are many proprietary Digtal film formats and Apple has 'standardised' the playback within the QuickTime video utility specifically for their Computers and made it freely availably on other platforms. Not a DVD format or MPEG but can be use as a player for both on any computer with Quicktime installed. However other Video players are available and each have some slight advantage although none quite as convenient.

DVD was developed in 1997 to replace Laser disks and CD although widely adopted it has several different formats. It uses MPEG Video compression technology. MOV incorporates the most efficient compression being h.264 Mpeg4 ideal for internet playback. However SWF has been adopted in many Video formats and is increasingly common playback format. DVD may change with adoption of Blu-ray disks.

This page represent most of what we do and is for explanation only and not the definitive articles I will bow towards those engineers who actually develop the technology, rather than those who simply use it like myself.

> Last updated 17/06/08