Is PDF a viable option for archiving digital images.

[Mike Guilbault]

I have a client requesting PDF format for archiving digital images. What are the pros and cons? Will a PDF retain colour and resolution?

[digitaldog]

I have a client requesting PDF format for archiving digital images. What are the pros and cons? Will a PDF retain colour and resolution?

IF just image data, NO! TIFF.
Openly documented image file format.

[Mike Guilbault]

I use Capture One Pro for my editing. I can export as a TIFF (8-bit) in ZIP format to bring the file size down, in this case to about 13MB as opposed to 7.5MB in JPG. I assume, since the file size is larger, the 'zipped' TIFF is still better quality than a JPEG. Would this be correct?

[digitaldog]

TIFF and JPEG are utterly different.
JPEG is not lossless compression. It doesn't support high bit data. No layers.
TIFF does all and more.
http://digitaldog.net/files/TIFFvsPSD.pdf

[Mike Guilbault]

Excellent article Andrew... thanks. I knew the basic difference between JPEG and TIFF but that article cleared up some other questions - and produced a couple more - lol.

I noticed that when exporting from Capture One, I only have the ZIP option at 16bit, or LZW and ZIP at 8 bit. Is there any noticeable difference between these options? As you can probably guess... I'm trying for the best quality at minimal size.

I should add that these images will not be edited any further so no need for PS. They're to be archived but also (likely) converted to a jpg for a digital display - historical display.

[digitaldog]

Thanks, but the key reason I provided it was so you'll keep track of possible issues with TIFF compression.
Just recently I ran into an issue with a very modern piece of software, Epson Print Layout.  It is able to load TIFFs with LZW or no compression but not TIFFs with Zip compression.

[Mike Guilbault]

Good to know. I appreciate the information.