What is the best format to save a picture as?

[fireedud]

^title^

[bedub1]

Depends on what you want to do with it. PSD for photoshop retains the layers. JPG is small & works for the web. GIF allow's animation....

[wcaclimbing]

I use .BMP for my pics...

it seems to work the bets for keeping quality.

[fireedud]

I want to use it for a non-animated picture.

[radiojake]

I use .BMP for my pics...

it seems to work the bets for keeping quality.

And for keeping the files nice and small

[Spockers]

jpeg will give you the best results if you are looking to decrease file size and keep quality.

[fireedud]

I don't really care about file size; I just want quality.

[The1exile]

I recommend png.

For real quality you want a vector graphic (.svg) since they can be enlarged to whatever size and keep quality, but they're not straight off images.

[Anarkistsdream]

I recommend png.

For real quality you want a vector graphic (.svg) since they can be enlarged to whatever size and keep quality, but they're not straight off images.

100% agreed.

[hecter]

I recommend png.

For real quality you want a vector graphic (.svg) since they can be enlarged to whatever size and keep quality, but they're not straight off images.

100% agreed.

Same here. .gif if good if you're using animation, jpeg is good for quick, low quality (generally...) things for the web (you can save a high quality jpeg, but it still has some problems) and png is good for just plain ol' quality. If you can't save it as a png, try bmp or just plain ol' jpg.

[Spockers]

i'm going to be betting that fireedud isn't going to be drawing in vectors.

Sounds like some sort of photo that he wants to save in reasonably high quality.

Just save as high quality jpeg. BMP or TIFF will save it as is, but such a waste of space.

[The Factory]

I use .png for everything I can, for as such an unknown filetype (in comparison with .gif, .jpg, etc.) it is easily used in most applications. Also, the size is surprisingly small, I thought that with such a small filesize the image quality would be awful but it's just as good as .bmp without the painfully awkward size.

[karek]

I recommend png.

For real quality you want a vector graphic (.svg) since they can be enlarged to whatever size and keep quality, but they're not straight off images.

100% agreed.

Same here. .gif if good if you're using animation, jpeg is good for quick, low quality (generally...) things for the web (you can save a high quality jpeg, but it still has some problems) and png is good for just plain ol' quality. If you can't save it as a png, try bmp or just plain ol' jpg.

Actually, .PNG was created to work with animation so it should be able to do just about everything .GIF can but with the addition of the possibility to add an embedded Gamma value and Alpha level transparency.

If you plan to rehost it to the internet or show it to people from a website, forum, etc. go with .PNG if size doesn't matter. If you just want it on your computer .BMP or .TIFF, both of which can get on the big size but usually keep quality without compression.