Digital Cameras File Formats

Digital Cameras: A Beginner's Guide to File Formats
By Christine Peppler

For those who aren't computer savvy, buying a digital camera can force the issue of learning a few things about computers if they wish to download, save, or print their pictures at home. Gaining knowledge about file formats is one example. Understanding a little bit about how pictures are recorded on a digital camera and then subsequently saved on a computer is critical but fairly simple even for a beginner.

Digital cameras record images as a grid of pixels. Because the data, the information about the grid of pixels, must be communicated to a computer for downloading, saving, and printing, the format used by the digital camera for storing the data must be understood by the computer as well regardless of the type of software used by the computer. Thus, there are standardized file formats used allowing this communication and transfer of data.

There are many file formats but there are only a few that are the most common used with images. Knowing which of these file formats to use when recording and saving images from a digital camera is crucial in assuring good image quality.

• JPG: The JPG file format is the most commonly used for photographs. Most digital cameras are set to store images in JPG automatically. The JPG format compresses files to save storage but in the process eliminates some of the data which degrades image quality to a small extent.