Whats best file format to save photos?

nikiyoung

Hi All and thanks for your advice in advance
I have found some discs (CD) that I put some photos on a few years ago (over 6) and they now wont open on my (newer) computer. I saved them as .jpg files but they wont open??
Anyway I have some time at the moment to scan in some old family photos and I don't want the same happening again so what should I back my photos up as?
.tif? .jpg? .bmp? .pic?
I am backing them up to an external hard drive will this guarantee that they will work?
Thanks again
Niki

Stompa

JPG is the usual choice as it's a good compromise between file size and image quality.

When you say your .jpg files don't open, what actually happens?

Sooler

.jpg is fine - can you copy the files from the CD to your PC and try top open them?
Is it just that you they can't be read from the CD?

Scan your photos and copy to external drive - always best to have at least two backup copies, stored in different locations.
Either another external drive - which you store in a different place - and keep both external drives up to date with back up copies of files.
Or an external drive and an online file store - like Sky Drive http://skydrive.live.com/ 25 GB of free space.

nikiyoung

tried to open using Picassa photo viewer and it comes up saying invalid image
Just looking at the files there is one file 01._NIKI.JPG then there is a file 01_NIKI.THM and 01_NIKI.NFO all for the same photo?
but they wont open they are wedding photos which actually must be 11 years old.

nikiyoung

sooler is picassa online storage any good, does it do the same thing?

jmc160

nikiyoung wrote: »

tried to open using Picassa photo viewer and it comes up saying invalid image
Just looking at the files there is one file 01._NIKI.JPG then there is a file 01_NIKI.THM and 01_NIKI.NFO all for the same photo?
but they wont open they are wedding photos which actually must be 11 years old.

Try copying the JPG file to your computer and renaming it to take out that first dot.

So you'd be making it 01_NIKI.JPG as opposed to 01._NIKI.JPG

Looks like it might bcausing a conflict with the file extension.

nikiyoung

opps sorry there isnt a . in the file name it is 01_NIKI.JPG
tried it anyway by taking out the _ but that didnt work

juliescot

Have you tried right clicking an opening with another programme?

nikiyoung

tried to open it in quicktime (as it is one of the options) and it says that the file is corrupted
I also tried microsoft photo editor an it says "cant open file"

isofa

Download a trial of Photoshop and try and Open it or Open As JPEG.

Or use it free online at https://www.photoshop.com

Or totally free, desktop app, try Paint.net.

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

If you try and view the pictures on the CD itself, do you see them on there?

You might need to change the view to 'thumbnail' though.