asked on

What is the MAXIMUM POSSIBLE COMPRESSION?

Most of the time, I use JPGs for images; but, occasionally (uisually with family images) I use very high resolution (600-1200).
Therefore, the files are usually pretty large when saved to TIFF (which I understand is the best format for saving images).
I also make JPG copies; but even they are very large.

I hope there is a very aggressive compression program and/or method to reduce the size of the images so that I can email them.

Thanks

GadgetDude

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Jose Parrot

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

billmercer

The best compression methods for images are fractal compression, a method that involves creating a mixture of fractals that approximates the appearance of the original image, and wavelet compression, which involves converting the image data into a collection of mathematical formulas that can be used to regenerate the original pixels.

Both of these can produce better compression than JPEG under some conditions, but the hitch is, nobody actually USES these algorithms, except in some highly specialized applications, and the software to view them isn't free.

JPEG really is the best option for emailing photos. Follow Jose's suggestion, and reduce the resolution of your images.
Another option is to upload them to a web site and email links to the pictures instead of sending the actual images as attachments.

billmercer

Whoops, I sort of misspoke. By "best compression method" I really meant "smallest compressed file," not that it's actually the best approach.

Fractal compression sucks in practice, because it's incredibly slow to compress, requires lots of fiddling about to get good results, and is patented out the wazoo so nobody can use it for free.

Wavelet compression is used in the JPEG 2000 specification.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_2000