hmm i understand most of my file formats(although i do mainly web, so i never cared to scaling it so so big) , but i'd like to know alot more about file formats.
like i know how a vector image looks like, but i see many people who ask for files to be saved " vector format ", does this mean saved as svg? eps? pdf? and isnt in a vector format consist mainly solid colors (shapes, does path count?) id just like to know better on these file types, so therefore i can make billboards, printable images, and etc.

TIFF is, in principle, a very flexible format that can be lossless or lossy. The details of the image storage algorithm are included as part of the file. In practice, TIFF is used almost exclusively as a lossless image storage format that uses no compression at all. Most graphics programs that use TIFF do not compression. Consequently, file sizes are quite big. (Sometimes a lossless compression algorithm called LZW is used, but it is not universally supported.)
PNG is also a lossless storage format. However, in contrast with common TIFF usage, it looks for patterns in the image that it can use to compress file size. The compression is exactly reversible, so the image is recovered exactly.
GIF creates a table of up to 256 colors from a pool of 16 million. If the image has fewer than 256 colors, GIF can render the image exactly. When the image contains many colors, software that creates the GIF uses any of several algorithms to approximate the colors in the image with the limited palette of 256 colors available. Better algorithms search the image to find an optimum set of 256 colors. Sometimes GIF uses the nearest color to represent each pixel, and sometimes it uses "error diffusion" to adjust the color of nearby pixels to correct for the error in each pixel.
GIF achieves compression in two ways. First, it reduces the number of colors of color-rich images, thereby reducing the number of bits needed per pixel, as just described. Second, it replaces commonly occurring patterns (especially large areas of uniform color) with a short abbreviation: instead of storing "white, white, white, white, white," it stores "5 white."
Thus, GIF is "lossless" only for images with 256 colors or less. For a rich, true color image, GIF may "lose" 99.998% of the colors.
JPG is optimized for photographs and similar continuous tone images that contain many, many colors. It can achieve astounding compression ratios even while maintaining very high image quality. GIF compression is unkind to such images. JPG works by analyzing images and discarding kinds of information that the eye is least likely to notice. It stores information as 24 bit color. Important: the degree of compression of JPG is adjustable. At moderate compression levels of photographic images, it is very difficult for the eye to discern any difference from the original, even at extreme magnification. Compression factors of more than 20 are often quite acceptable. Better graphics programs, such as Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop, allow you to view the image quality and file size as a function of compression level, so that you can conveniently choose the balance between quality and file size.
BMP is an uncompressed proprietary format invented by Microsoft. There is really no reason to ever use this format.
PSD, PSP, etc. , are proprietary formats used by graphics programs. Photoshop's files have the PSD extension, while Paint Shop Pro files use PSP. These are the preferred working formats as you edit images in the software, because only the proprietary formats retain all the editing power of the programs. These packages use layers, for example, to build complex images, and layer information may be lost in the nonproprietary formats such as TIFF and JPG. However, be sure to save your end result as a standard TIFF or JPG, or you may not be able to view it in a few years when your software has changed.
Currently, GIF and JPG are the formats used for nearly all web images. PNG is supported by most of the latest generation browsers. TIFF is not widely supported by web browsers, and should be avoided for web use. PNG does everything GIF does, and better, so expect to see PNG replace GIF in the future. PNG will not replace JPG, since JPG is capable of much greater compression of photographic images, even when set for quite minimal loss of quality.



When i was at work doing signage and billboards for digital output we mainly dealt with AI files for vector art and eps files, depends on the work you are doing as to what format is required, this is a good link that explains all the file types you would probably need to know http://dx.sheridan.com/advisor/supported_files.html

alright, thanks alot, i appreciate it, but im still concern about 1 thing actually, if you make an image out of vector shapes, paths with the pen tool, thats scalable right?

Originally Posted by NeoWeapon

alright, thanks alot, i appreciate it, but im still concern about 1 thing actually, if you make an image out of vector shapes, paths with the pen tool, thats scalable right?

Depends on what you export it to all the normal ones PNG, JPG so on... No that won't be scalable but if you export it as a vector format e.g. eps it will be but note vector only mean it doesn't loose AS MUCH quality when resized so if you make it huge then yes it will loose some quality.
Hope this helps.
Neon

Originally Posted by Neonimage

Depends on what you export it to all the normal ones PNG, JPG so on... No that won't be scalable but if you export it as a vector format e.g. eps it will be but note vector only mean it doesn't loose AS MUCH quality when resized so if you make it huge then yes it will loose some quality.
Hope this helps.
Neon

oh, ok i understand what your saying, only scalable if under vector formats such as svg, eps and etc, but it still wont be the same quality but it will be reduced. alright thanks

Yep thats right

If you send as an AI file or if corel a cdr file both are scalable as vector images, if you convert the vector file to any other file type then you start to have a few problems lol, when I was working most common form of file we recieved from clients were AI files and eps as 9 times out of ten slight changes were needed to adjudst for printing