In digital photography, images are stored as digital files. A variety of image file formats exist such as:
- JPEG (or JPG) - Joint Photographic Experts Group
- RAW - Raw Image Formats
- PNG - Portable Network Graphics
- GIF - Graphics Interchange Format
- TIFF - Tagged Image File
- PSD - Photoshop Document
- PDF - Portable Document Format
- EPS - Encapsulated Postscript
- AI - Adobe Illustrator Document
- INDD - Adobe InDesign Document
- EXIF - Exchangeable Image File Format
There are three main types of files used in anatomic pathology practice: RAW, JPEG, and TIFF. When a picture is taken, the camera records the data onto the memory card as a file. If all the original data is stored, this is called a lossless file. These files are large in size (uncompressed file is up to 77MB). RAW files are lossless. To reduce file size, the camera can discard part of the data not easily perceptible to the human eye. A JPEG is a lossy file. A TIFF file is, in principle, a flexible format that can be lossless or lossy.
