Screen Shots

[Shadow]

Hi all,

A question:

I like taking screen shots and I like using Fraps to do it with as there is more flexibility that the built in.

In Fraps you have the option of saving your pics as BMP, JPG or PNG.

What I'm wondering is, are there major differences in quality between these different compressions?

As a rule I usually save as a Bmp and convert to jpeg for the web. I personally don't find much loss in this method, but, alas... my eyes are not those of a younger man and I may just be not noticing. In fact, I don't see much difference between a jpeg and a gif aside from maybe some very minor pixelation in the gif.

Any advice in this would be appreciated,

Freelancer

[B16Enk]

BMP IIRC is uncompressed and will therefore have the higher quality.

Both jpeg and gif compress, main difference is compression can be adjusted in jpeg from 0 compression up...

[Arsenal]

Roger is correct on all counts. The main thing you need to look at is file size. A bit map image is much larger in comparison to a .jpg.

What you plan on doing to the picture once you take it should dictate what file type you use. If you take a large picture, and want to crop it, the final quality of the crop is going to be much better if the original file is a bitmap. I'm not a big fan of .jpg because it has too many artifacts for my liking, especially if you "zoom" a particular part of the picture.

Typically, I usually use a bitmap, and edit it to the point where I am happy with it, and then convert it to a .jpg for file size purposes. You will still get some artifacting, but it much better than trying to edit a .jpg in the first place.

My 2p anyways.