Best archive format for scanned 35mm B+W film?

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capitaltpt

Senior Member
I recently got a few rolls of B+W 35mm developed from a period when I was testing out an N55. I've scanned the negatives and I end up with 172MB TIFF files. I'm wondering what format would be best to covert these to for archiving and later editing down the line. I'd prefer something with lossless compression to make the file size a little more manageable. If I save as an NEF with Capture NX, the file size actually grows by 8MB. As a DNG file converted in ACR it shrinks to just over 100MB. Any other suggestions that might get this under 100MB?
 
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fotojack

Senior Member
capitaltpt said:
I recently got a few rolls of B+W 35mm developed from a period when I was testing out an N55. I've scanned the negatives and I end up with 172MB TIFF files. I'm wondering what format would be best to covert these to for archiving and later editing down the line. I'd prefer something with lossless compression to make the file size a little more manageable. If I save as an NEF with Capture NX, the file size actually grows by 8MB. As a DNG file converted in ACR it shrinks to just over 100MB. Any other suggestions that might get this under 100MB?
Click to expand...

I would save them as lossless jpg to save a lot of space. Others opinions may differ. :)
 
Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
If you own the scanner, you could save the files as jpegs to save space on your computer until you decide which one you really want to seriously work with. Then scan that one shot again and then work with TIFF. Film negatives would probably last longer than digital media. This way you still have the original to work with.
 
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bobmielke

New member
capitaltpt said:
I recently got a few rolls of B+W 35mm developed from a period when I was testing out an N55. I've scanned the negatives and I end up with 172MB TIFF files. I'm wondering what format would be best to covert these to for archiving and later editing down the line. I'd prefer something with lossless compression to make the file size a little more manageable. If I save as an NEF with Capture NX, the file size actually grows by 8MB. As a DNG file converted in ACR it shrinks to just over 100MB. Any other suggestions that might get this under 100MB?
Click to expand...

There are only two truly lossless formats, as far as I know, TIFF & BMP. Both produce huge files as no pixels are lost.
 
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fotojack

Senior Member
Sorry, Bob, I beg to differ. There are quite a few, actually, as supported by Wikipedia.

[h=3]Graphics[/h]
  • ILBM – (lossless RLE compression of Amiga IFF images)
  • JBIG2 – (lossless or lossy compression of B&W images)
  • JPEG-LS – (lossless/near-lossless compression standard)
  • JPEG 2000 – (includes lossless compression method, as proven by Sunil Kumar, Prof San Diego State University)
  • JPEG XR – formerly WMPhoto and HD Photo, includes a lossless compression method
  • PGF – Progressive Graphics File (lossless or lossy compression)
  • PNG – Portable Network Graphics
  • TIFF – Tagged Image File Format
  • Gifsicle (GPL) – Optimize gif files
  • Jpegoptim (GPL) – Optimize jpeg files
 
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capitaltpt

Senior Member
Thanks for the replies. I had no idea there was a lossless jpeg. Do you know of any utility for windows that will convert to JPEG-LS? More importantly, can any editor read it?
 
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capitaltpt

Senior Member
So after a little reading, I found out PNG files are lossless compressed (and will do 16, 24, and 48 bit). They come out to less than half the size of the TIFF files. Who knew? Thank you everyone for your responses on here.
 
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capitaltpt

Senior Member
I could, but it actually makes the TIFF files bigger. I played around a bit and found I could save them as lossless compressed TIFs, so all is good.
 
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