What's the Best Format for...?
The following table contains the formats that Accusoft Corporation considers most practical for the listed type of data, and can be used as a starting point. You can use a format with the appropriate bit depth and one that provides either the most efficient use of space, or the fastest loading and saving capabilities.
Bear in mind that the following table represents recommendations only. To make an informed choice, read about each format in more detail in the section File Formats Reference.
Image Type |
Recommended |
Colors |
JPEG, JPEG 2000, TIFF, PNG |
Grayscale/many shades |
TGA, TIFF, JPEG, DICOM |
Monochrome / high resolution |
TIFF (CCITT Group 3 Compression and CCITT Group 4 Compression) |
Banking data |
IBM IOCA |
Noisy |
Color: PNG, TIFF, JPEG |
Lossless |
GIF, TIFF, PNG, JPEG (Lossless JPEG Compression) |
Lossy |
TIFF (JPEG Compression), JPEG |
Extra data to store |
TIFF |
Iconic images |
ICO |
Multimedia |
PNG, GIF, JPEG |
Multi-page |
|
Photographic images |
PSB, PSD, PCD, JPEG |
Internet images |
GIF, JPEG, PNG, JPEG 2000, WBMP |
PC paint programs and/or graphics arts |
PCX, GEM, TIFF, BMP |
X Windows |
XBM, XPM, XWD |
Medical data |
DICOM |
CAD/Vector |
DWG, DWF, DXF, CGM, DGN, HPGL, SVG , U3D |
|
|
Document processing |
TIFF, PDF, PS, PTOCA, XPS |
Alpha Channel |
JPEG 2000
Format |
Read Only Support |
Read/Write Support |
CUR |
Single 1-bit alpha channel |
Single 8-bit alpha channel |
ICO |
Single 1-bit alpha channel |
Single 8-bit alpha channel |
JPEG |
|
Single alpha channel |
JPEG 2000 |
|
Single alpha channel, for grayscale and RGB images |
JPX |
|
- Single alpha channel, for grayscale and RGB images
- Additional alpha channels as ImageGear Extra channels
|
PNG |
|
Single alpha channel |
PSB |
- Single alpha channel
- Additional alpha channels as ImageGear Extra channels
|
|
PSD |
- Single alpha channel
- Additional alpha channels as ImageGear Extra channels
|
|
SGI |
|
Single alpha channel |
TGA |
|
Single alpha channel |
TIFF |
|
- Single alpha channel
- Additional alpha channels as ImageGear Extra channels
- The following compressions are supported with alpha channel:
- Uncompressed
- Packed Bits
- LZW
- Deflate
| |