In my opinion if people are going to go through the trouble of scanning their family photos for preservation purposes then whey not instruct them on how archives and museums do it? The whole reason to scan prints, negatives, etc. is to have a back-up copy in case something happens to the original. Why should we instruct, even do-it-yourselfers, do make low resolution scans for this purpose? As museums and archives we are supposed to be looking down the road. Just imagine these families coming in 50 years from now and trying to give us low resolution JPGS because that’s all they have left.

Erin O’Malley

Exhibit designer

From the link you provided: “There is an optional lossless mode defined in the JPEG standard; however, this mode is not widely supported in products.”

 

From the Unofficial TIFF page (referenced by Adobe for users seeking information on the TIFF format):

Question 6. Do I need a license from Adobe or anyone else to use TIFF?

You don't need a license from Adobe to implement software reading and writing the TIFF format. You may need a license for use of existing TIFF libraries though libraries with minimal licensing requirements are also available.

At one time there was a need for an LZW license from Unisys to implement LZW compression support in TIFF, but it is our believe all patents have now expired.

For users of TIFF, there is no license requirement.  For software developers, libTIFF is available under a GPL license.

 

 

From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of "Verlag Dr. C. Müller-Straten"
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 3:03 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] At home documentation of paper records

 

Thanks, Elisabeth,
for your clearing words. First of all, let me explain again, we are preferring jpg files (for printing and web) first of all for legal reasons. As far as I am informed, Aldus, later Adobe holds copyrights on TIFF format itself (as most others inventors of picture formats do).

Then, just have a look at the English Wikipedia page on lossfree jpgs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG
Also my experience says that opening jpgs, looking at them, loading up them or printing them will not cause another "loss". Why should somebody save a picture (with losses) anytime he/she opens it?

I think, Elisabeth is absolutely right with her advice for this case of a private collection. Professionals have been asked, but there is no need to adapt professional standards to private purposes.

Greetings


Christian

 

 

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