Consider the three images below : they are all from the same original (a 1327 x 1000, 3891K jpg image).

Dreamweaver (the program used for this web page) does not support tiff (Tagged Image File Format) images as they cannot be uploaded to the web. In comparison, however, the file size for the above photo as a tiff image is 88K.

Images with transparent backgrounds must be saved in gif format or the transparency will be lost; to preserve layers in Paint Shop Pro images (as when still working on the image) they must be saved as psp images as saving in jpg or gif merges the layers.

JPG /JPEG, TIF/TIFF and PNG images all have 16 million colours whereas GIF images only have 256.

JPG gives the option of saving in compressed files, but this reduces file size at the expense of definition.
Compare the images below with the uncompressed image at the left of the trio above:

Compression Factor 25 - 19K

Compression Factor 50 - 8K

Compression Factor 75 - 6K

For use on the Web, low compression factors (below 25) do not affect visual quality too much and certainly save on storage space, but if the image is to be printed out the the highest (uncompressed) definition is necessary.

In practice, if printing out an image, TIFF gives the best definition but JPG is perfectly adequate (and is the format my camera saves its images in.)

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Clause 4b. Discuss the various options for transferring a picture from digital to print.

Since my camera saves its images in jpg format on a Compact Flash card it is simple to transfer the images, via a USB card reader, to whatever program I choose. I usually use Paint Shop Pro (PSP) version 8 but I also have EasyPhoto Imagewave, Corel Paint, Macromedia Fireworks and FinePix to play with if I want.

I have an A3 printer (a Canon S9000) and a multitude of sizes and qualities of photo paper to suit the purpose of the prints : my preferred option is Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy at 270g/m² printed via PSP8 at maximum resolution.