Sandra is absolutely right.  You must determine the use of your photos as your institution needs them.

We are not an art museum and scans of photos of President Hoover's personal belongings are not in demand for high quality reprinting--neither can I imagine that they ever will be.  Because of that, we don't really need images of those things at a higher resolution than a JPG.  However, some pieces of fine art in our collection are in high demand for reproduction and those pieces we scan as high resolution TIFFs.  If someone requests a higher quality image of one of the JPGs, it would be faster and cheaper to rescan it as a TIFF than it would be to save them all as TIFFs just in case we need one down the road.

Another consideration is that many of the photos of our collection are not professionally done, but are simply our own in-house record photography.  We do not have the time or money to invest in taking high quality photographs of each object that we accession, so saving them as TIFFs doesn't seem practical.

I guess my point is that there isn't always an all or nothing answer.  Perhaps it should be decided on an object by object basis.

Chris

Christine Mouw
Assistant Curator
Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum
West Branch, Iowa  52358
[log in to unmask]

>>> [log in to unmask] 09/29 6:57 AM >>>
Dennis, I agree with you.  My understanding is that TIFF images are
considered to be archival (as archival as a digital image can be) because
they are the most accurate digital versions.  JPEGs, however, are not
because of the loss of color information.  So ultimately I would say that
your choice of TIFF vs. JPEG will depend upon your intended use.  If you are
absolutely certain that your digital images will only ever be used for web
purposes, then go JPEG.  But if your intention in digitizing is preservation
- in other words, you intend to use the digital image in lieu of the
original at times - then absolutely go with the TIFF image.  As Dennis said,
you will always be able to create images in other formats from the TIFF,
including JPEG.

Personally, I think it is very difficult to know what the future will bring
- it is well worth the investment now to do it correctly and with fewer
limitations.

~~~~~~~~~~
Sandra Smith
Museum Collections Assistant
National Trust for Historic Preservation
202-588-6154 voice
202-588-6232 fax

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