Which is "better": TIFF @ 300 dpi or JPEG @ 600 dpi?

For "archiving," would you save your photos as:

- TIFF @ 300 dpi

or

-JPEG @ 600 dpi.

Assume that those are your only two choices.

Actually the real difference would be in how many original pixels and color depth you are storing. A 6 megapixel image would store more detail than a 3 megapixel image. 6 MP would be better, at least for later enlargement printing or cropping.

Pixels Per Inch (ppi) is more technically correct (dpi is used for printer ink dots), but is somewhat irrelevant anyway. Any size megapixel image can be defined with any ppi density we choose. The same pixels are either more or less packed together. But the same pixels are still there.

As for recording format, TIFF is most often recommended for archival storage. It is a non-lossy format (doesn't permanently lose any detail when compressed), so what you store is exactly what you get back. And it allows for storing additional supplimentary data. And it's a widely used format.

Photoshop's PSD format is also a good choice.

JPEG permanently loses some detail every time the image is saved. This is lower with "high quality/large file size" options which use less compression. But still some loss occurs.

So I use JPEG for everyday use, and TIFF for archiving.

Good Luck Interesting question. I think I'd choose the higher resolution jpeg, but I'm anxious to read replies from someone who has a good reason to choose one over the other. TIFF uses a whole lot more memory than JPEG.