A graphic file format is the modality whereby a image is storage, namely "saved", as file on disk and represents an agreement of organitation of general information of the image and of pixel coding information that constitute the inside of the file.

Since birth of graphics processing digital images, each software producer has created graphics file formats owners, but with the passing of time and the need to manage the file using different application, were created standard formed more or less universally recongized.

Currently the most popular graphic formats for digital images are as follows: TIFF, JPEG, PNG, BMP, PDF.

The format TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is a format very flexible and widely used within the document because it allows to store the image using a different compression algorithms (CCITT G3, CCITT G4, JPEG, RLE, etc...) and insert into file also addition information related to modality interpretation of image, comments and annotations.

The format JPEG (Joint Photographic Expert Group) is a format used above to photos, because it uses a compression algorithm very powerful that allow to reduce the storage space used in front of a certain loss of information, namely a deterioration of the image however is usually not very visible to the human eye. Although the loss of information can be determined a priori, obtaining images more or less compressed, the use in the field of document is not very recommended.

The format PNG (Portable Network Graphic) is a format created for the use of images on the internet, primarily to avoid the use of the format GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) that a few years ago, before the expiry of the patent inventor of the company, was subject royalties. Compression, in both formats, not does lose information but at the same time it is poorly suited to images scanned by the scanner.

The format BMP (Windows BitMaP) is the native format used by the Windows operating system. It is a very simple format that allows you to store images of any type, but poorly used as interchange format.

The format PDF (Portable Document Format) is a vector format, so not specifically to raster images However, due to its wide diffusion for the distribution of vector documents, for example created with word processing applications and virtual printers, and thanks to the availability of an application of free viewing multiplatform, is also widely used for storing digital images acquired from the scanner. Although in some cases it may be advantageous to use it, it is still a very complex format with high overhead compared to other specific formats for raster images.

The ability for an application to be able to convert files from one format to another ( File Format Conversion ) is closely tied to the implementation of technology to read and write files in the formats to be managed: in fact, when the image has been loaded into memory by decoding a certain type of file, it can be re-coded and re-written to disk in another format.

It is therefore possible::

• convert files TIFF to JPG
• convert files TIFF to PNG
• convert files TIFF to BMP
• convert files TIFF to PDF
• convert files JPG to TIFF
• convert files JPG to PNG
• convert files JPG to BMP
• convert files JPG to PDF
• convert files PNG to JPG
• convert files PNG to TIFF
• convert files PNG to BMP
• convert files PNG to PDF
• convert files BMP to JPG
• convert files BMP to PNG
• convert files BMP to TIFF
• convert files BMP to PDF
• convert files PDF to JPG
• convert files PDF to PNG
• convert files PDF to BMP
• convert files PDF to TIFF

However, it is well to remember that when store an image file formats use compression algorithms that involve loss of quality/information (lossy), when it will again be charged more or less different from the initial and of course, the original information can not be recovered, even storing it in another format that does not involve loss of information ( loss-less ).