>>The problem with grayscale (and color) only derives when the imaging
application strays away from the TIFF 6.0 Format specifications and uses
a TIFF with JPEG compression to minimize the file size for its grayscale
and color images.<<

Understood.  On the other hand, the documents we are imaging are too
large to handle or unreadable without using JPEG compression.  An
alternative we use internally is the DjVu format, with outstanding
results.  The problem comes when we have to send imaged documents out to
external parties who do not have the DjVu plugin.

We are not concerned about generational loss as we do not repeatably
decompress and compress. 

Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Simon DeWitt
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 8:50 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TIFF versus PDF for short-term retention

Bill,

The problem with grayscale (and color) only derives when the imaging
application strays away from the TIFF 6.0 Format specifications and uses
a TIFF with JPEG compression to minimize the file size for its grayscale
and color images. A TIFF with JPEG compression is a not a good format to
choose for record keeping, because it is a lossy compression. Most lossy
compression formats suffer from generation loss: repeatedly compressing
and decompressing the file will cause it to progressively lose quality.
This is in contrast with lossless data compression which is being used
by standard TIFF that follow the 6.0 Format specifications. 

Simon De Witt

-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Roach, Bill
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 8:53 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [RM] TIFF versus PDF for short-term retention

>>therefore cannot solve their problems with accurately rendering their
TIFF files,<<

I don't believe the problem is with the TIF file.  I am guessing that
the problem is that some of the images may contain grayscale.  The MS
Fax and Image viewer does not support grayscale.

We ran into a similar problem when I was with ND.  We could scan
documents and the MS Viewer would say they were unreadable.  The FileNet
IDM viewer would handle them just fine.

One of the issues to be cognizant of when making the tif v. pdf decision
is whether or not annotations will be required.  Most ECM platforms
readily support tif annotation as a standard.  Annotations of PDF's adds
another layer of complexity.

Bill R
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