Home    About Us    Examples    JPG History    Contact Us    Tell A Friend

JPG History

The Most Versatile Image Format
JPG is a file extension that represents a JPEG format photo or image. JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. It is probably one of the most widely-used digital image formats in electronic media today. It is easy to edit with popular editing software and because it can be compressed efficiently, it allows handheld devices such as mobile phones and digital cameras to store many images without buying additional storage cards.

The Advantages of JPGs
The biggest advantage of JPGs is that they can be compressed to almost 1/10 of the original data size. This makes the image format great for digital handheld devices such as cameras. You can fit more JPGs on a memory card than you can with other image file formats like TIFF, and RAW.

Image compression for JPGs works by discarding small details for color changes. By discarding these small details, data size reduction can be achieved efficiently. This makes for images that load very quickly when displayed on a web page or sent through an email. These days, most people will be uploading their pictures to social media sites or sending them through the email and JPGs allow this to happen without extremely long uploads or downloads.

Many digital cameras also allow you to take JPG photos at different size settings. The size setting that you choose depends on how you will use the photo. For example, you may want to use a larger size setting for printing on a full sheet of paper or a smaller one to use on your blog.

Because of the popularity of JPGs, practically all of the popular image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop, Focus Magic, and Imagic are compatible with them. These software packages allow you to orient your JPGs in different directions, enhance the color, sharpen, blur, and many other operations.

Tips for Making the Best JPGs
Since editing JPGs involves discarding some small details in order to optimize compression, you should always save your original photo. Always have the ability to go back to where you started before editing.

Try to crop your image at 1024 x 768 pixels. This is because most computer monitors are set at 1024 x 768 and most prints are sized at 4 inches by 6 inches. A size of 1024 x 768 will allow for optimum display on either of these two types of media.

Image quality usually starts at the source. In other words, no amount of editing can correct a poorly snapped photo. For example, to avoid blurring because of sudden movements, use a tripod. While it’s true that you can sharpen an image in editing software, it usually is not as sharp as taking a photo with a tripod. Also be careful with using flash and try to take photos outside in the shade or on a cloudy day. There are many tricks photographers use to get the best quality photos which in turn produce the best JPGs.

Always try to give a descriptive name to your image files. It is not uncommon that when you edit your images that you will have several sizes as a result. Try to not only give your files a descriptive name but put the size in the filename as well. This will help you when you have to go back and find the right picture.