Exporting RAW for Print vs Web: TIFF, JPG, or PNG?
You've processed a RAW file and it's time to export — but to what? TIFF, JPG, and PNG each suit a different destination, and choosing wrong means either bloated files or lost quality where it counts. Here's a practical guide to picking the right export format for print, web, and everything in between.
For professional print: TIFF
When a photo is going to a professional lab, a magazine, or a large wall print, export to TIFF. It's lossless and preserves the full colour depth and dynamic range of your edit, which is exactly what print production needs. The files are large, but for print, quality beats size every time.
For web, social, and sharing: JPG
For anything on a screen — your website, Instagram, a client gallery, email — JPG is the right answer. It's small, universally supported, and at high quality settings the compression is invisible for on-screen viewing. Almost all of your everyday exports should be JPG.
Choose your export format
TIFF — print
Lossless, full colour depth. For labs, magazines, and large prints. Large files.
JPG — web & sharing
Small, universal, invisible compression on screen. Your everyday default.
PNG — graphics & transparency
Lossless and supports transparency. Best for logos, screenshots, and graphics — not photos.
Where PNG fits (and doesn't)
PNG is lossless and supports transparency, which makes it great for graphics, logos, and screenshots. For photographs, though, it produces much larger files than JPG with no visible benefit on screen — so it's usually the wrong choice for exporting a photo unless you specifically need transparency or a lossless screen image.
A note on colour space
For print, keep the wider colour information your edit holds and let the lab handle the final conversion. For web and social, sRGB is the safe standard — it ensures your colours look right in browsers and apps, which don't always manage wider colour spaces correctly.
خلاصة القول
Match the format to the destination: TIFF for professional print, JPG for web and sharing, and PNG only when you need transparency or a lossless graphic. Export a TIFF for the lab and a JPG for the gallery from the same edit, and keep your original RAW as the master you can always return to.
Export your RAW photos
Convert RAW to JPG, TIFF, or PNG free — the right format for print, web, or sharing.