Export.

a study

Nick Arvanitas

0419
INTRODUCTION
GOALS + STANDARD

#Goals
The outcome of this project is to demonstrate different file types
and their various export options. After reading through this guide, it’s
anticipated that more knowledge will be gained about the different
file types and how they interact with images, video, and audio.

Process
To compare the file types a variety of images have been chosen. The
subjects of each photo differ to showcase nature, text, people, and
hair. These different images are marked with different focal points to
show where the image is altered the most.

The file types that will be demonstrated are GIF, PNG, JPEG, and
JPEG 2000. It is anticipated that JPEG and JPEG 2000 will handle
larger, more detailed images better, while PNG and GIF will do better
with images with less color. Regardless all will be tested.

2
 IMAGE FORMATS

IMAGE FORMATS
IMAGE FORMATS
VECTOR & RASTER

jpeg Joint Photographic Experts Group

JPEG files make up the majority of the internet. They arethe primary type
of raster images because of their small file size but high quality.

tiff Adobe
TIFF files were originally developed for sending text over scanners. They
evolved over the years and are now used to store multiple layersof color
images.

raw Various Developers

Raw files depend on the type of camera used. They are not yet processed
and need a graphics editor to convert them. They can be considered as
digital negatives.

png W3C
PNG files use a lossless compression. They became popular because of
their high color depth and the ability to have a transparent background.
eps Adobe
EPS or Encapsulated PostScript files are some of the first vector
files created. They require printers that s upport PostScript to
print the vector image. gif CompuServe
GIF files became one of the first popular images fileson the internet. By
ai Adobe piecing together multiple imagesit creates an animation with a relatively
low file size.
AI files originated from Adobe Illustrator. They vary in the fact
that they were developed specifically with a program in mind.

P
svg W3C
SVG files have become popular recently for use in theweb. Since
they are a vector image they can be scaledinfinitely without loss
of quality.

webp Google
WebP is a relatively new format when compared to the others. It
can do almost anything the other formats can as well. It supports
transparent backgrounds, animation, and can be lossy or lossless.
It’s not been adopted widely for one reason old habits die hard.

4
IMAGE COMPRESSION
JPEG

Standard
To avoid any bias with the image rendering, I first had to downsize the
original image. I cropped the image to a 128px by 636px dimension
with a density of 300 ppi. This helped me establish a standard for the
images to work with, and avoid super sampling.

The first image in this set is the truest to the original, with the
following images being exported in increments of 25%. I exported
them through Photoshop using the Export As...feature in Photoshop
cc 2019.

A lot of the differences in between the images aren’t very noticeable

until they are zoomed in. The main areas of change are boxed out to
make them more noticeable. A few of the colors are slightly changed
and the image has a duller quality. What once were crisp color
gradients are now rid with image artifacts. In this image it is especially
noticable in the eye region. The file size is drastically different as
well with the original image being 1 megabyte and with the final
image being 61.4 kilobytes.

File Structure
Lion_100
Lion_75
Lion_50
Lion_25
Quality 100% Quality 75% Quality 50% Quality 25% Quality 1%
Lion_1 1MB 457.2KB 231.4KB 129.4KB 61.4KB

5
IMAGE COMPRESSION
JPEG

Lion
The noticeable difference between
JPEG images it the macroblocking
through the different quality levels. As
the quality level gets lower, it seems

100%
that the macroblocks get larger.

With this eye image as well there

was a random pinkish color that
came about under the 25% Quality
levels. Another thing that isn’t visually
represented here was what happened
when converting from an original raw
file to sRGB colors. Colors that are
more toned down originally become
200%

brighter and more vibrant. This isn’t

necessarily a bad thing, however it is
a perceptible consequence from using
an image on the web.
400%
800%

Quality 100% Quality 75% Quality 50% Quality 25% Quality 1%

1MB 457.2KB 231.4KB 129.4KB 61.4KB

6
IMAGE COMPRESSION
PNG

transParent N G
PNG has been a long used format made popular by it’s ability to
support transparent pixels. It was commonly used previously for logos
and different typography. It supports less colors than JPEG, but more
than GIF while maintaining a relatively small file size.

To test PNG’s ability to compress files I used a nature shot. I wanted

to see the effects that it had on the water, and with the smaller
objects featured in the image. I noticed some of the biggest color
changes coming from around the boat. When dropped down to 64
colors, and adjusting the snap feature to 100 I noticed the biggest
differences.

File Structure
Water_256_Dither
Water_128_Dither
Water_128_noDither
Water_64_noDither
Water_64_noDither_Snap100

256 Dithered 128 Dithered 128 No Dither 64 No Dither 64No Dither Snap
825KB 716KB 639KB 524KB 281KB

7
IMAGE COMPRESSION
PNG

Water
By applying the Snap feature in the
last column, it changed the colors
drastically, and made them seem more
artificial and harsh. The color gradients

100%
that appear much more smoothly in
the previous column are completely
replaced.

The noticeable difference across all

5 images is the changes that occur to
the green folder (seen in the bottom
row). The rich green color becomes
washed out as the color number
drops, and is completely swallowed
200%

up by its gray surroundings in the 4th

column. However, as we reach the last
column, with the snap feature a bright
blue color is introduced where the
green folder once was.
400%
800%

256 Dithered 128 Dithered 128 No Dither 64 No Dither 64No Dither Snap
825KB 716KB 639KB 524KB 281KB

8
IMAGE COMPRESSION
GIF

Don’t look a GIF horse in the mouth

GIF supports the least amount of colors, and is most often used for
repetitious short videos. It is not the best option when it comes to
exporting high quality images, but is still a common format because of
it’s support of animation and transparency. It was commonly used for
Logos until the introduction of Vector Images.

To test the GIF compression I utilized an image of a Native American

dancer. The vibrant colors and hair pieces let me really see the GIF
export in action. I exported it with various presets setup in Photoshop
alternating with or without Dither. The last file I applied the lossy
export option as well, which made for some rad streaks across the
photo.

File Structure
Face_256_Dither
Face_128_Dither
Face_128_noDither
Face_64_noDither
Face_64_noDither_Lossy
256 Dithered 128 Dithered 128 No Dither 64 No Dither 64 No Dither Lossy
521KB 635KB 440KB 335KB 82KB

9
IMAGE COMPRESSION
GIF

Hair
With GIF exporting, the size of the
pixels didn’t seem to change across
the board. As the number of colors
were reduced, the edges didnt

100%
become less crisp or defined, but
overall they stayed the same.

The eye soar out of this export project

is the last column however. The image
stays pretty consistent through all the
different exports of GIF files, however
with the last column the Lossy button
was checked. The horizontal exporting
process is really defined, and leaves
200%

the image looking like it has different

tiers. It’s very apparent that the export
struggled to find the right colors to
match up to the hair strands.
400%
800%

256 Dithered 128 Dithered 128 No Dither 64 No Dither 64 No Dither Lossy

521KB 635KB 440KB 335KB 82KB

10
IMAGE COMPRESSION
JPEG 2000

4k divided by 2.
JPEG 2000 was introduced in the year (drum roll please....) 2000.
It was made by the same developers of JPEG to supersede their
previous format. The downside is “old habits die hard,” and the JPEG
form is still in the top most popular formats used today. JPEG 2000
is arguably better by it’s different codec, and support of transparent
pixels and animation. However, it’s seriously lacking when it comes to
support with programs.

To test it’s capacity I exported various images with Chinese

Characters. I wanted to see how the format held up with those
curved edges, while trying to maintain a small file size. When
exporting I chose a full range of quality levels. However, the quality
level did not directly correspond to the file size, with the biggest drop
in size being between the 100% and 75% images.

File Structure
Characters_100
Characters_75
Characters_50
Characters_25
Characters_1
100% Quality 75% Quality 50% Quality 25% Quality 1% Quality
1.6MB 735KB 236KB 66KB 20KB

11
IMAGE COMPRESSION
JPEG 2000

Chinese Characters
The hard part about exporting in JPEG
2000 is finding a place that supports
the file format. InDesign isn’t one of
those programs, so to import this file

100%
I converted it back to JPEG since that
seemed like the closest format.

JPEG 2000 seemed to retain higher

image quality with very little space.
It was only in the 1% Quality column
that discoloration was extremely
noticeable. As with the JPEG file
format, the macroblocking becomes
more apparent as the quality level
200%

goes down, however this could be due

to having to re-export the image to a
JPEG format.
400%
800%

100% Quality 75% Quality 50% Quality 25% Quality 1% Quality

1.6MB 735KB 236KB 66KB 20KB

12
IMAGE COMPRESSION
DITHER

Ditherin’
The images to the right show the different effects Dithering has on an To better understand the effect Dithering has on an image, I used
image. To show this I exported the same image 4 times using the Save
for Web (Legacy)... option through Photoshop. I exported the image
as a PNG file that only uses 2 colors. This helped me better isolate the
Dithering effect to show exactly what was happening.

The method that seemed to recapture the original photo the best was
Dithering by Diffusion. With No Dither the photo was extremely dark,
and with Pattern and Noise options the images were drowned out
with white pixels.

No Dither Diffusion Pattern Noise

13
IMAGE COMPRESSION
MULTIPLE EXPORT JPEG

Pete and Repeat

Something I wanted to test as well was the effect exporting multiple
times had on the same image. For this trial I tried to consider my
audience, and use the export options and software they would use. I
went with exporting an image through premiere, and when prompted
about the file quality, always selecting the highest option. The file
size jumped up exponentially (almost 1MB at first) then plateaued
off at around 1700KB. I later zoomed in completely to compare the
differences in the indicated spot.

File Structure
Headshot_1
Headshot_2
Headshot_3
Headshot_7
1st Compression 2nd Compression 3rd Compression 7th Compression 10th Compression
Headshot_10 455KB 1385KB 1487KB 1656KB 1722KB

14
IMAGE COMPRESSION
MULTIPLE EXPORT JPEG

Happy little gradient

When zoomed in there was obvious decay

in the file quality when re-exported over
time. The side by side comparison shows
the image when first exported and when
exported for the 10th time. There is
noticable blocking in the second image,
whereas the first has a smooth transition of
colors. The JPEG format becomes more and
more confused as it processes the image
over an over.

This can be alarming when it comes to

preserving images. Although at 100% the
differences were very hard to notice, if this
image was ever used on a billboard, they
might be more apparent. Images will decay
the more people save them, and export
them (They will even become larger in file
size as well). Even when the highest quality
is always selected.

15
 USE CASE SCENARIO

IMAGE FORMATS
WEB
GOOGLE CHROME

Optimus PNGrime

I wanted to test images when it came to

using them for web. I knew from previous
experience that with Web Development,
optimization of images is critical so that the
website is not bogged down, and can load
quickly for every person.

Thus I had to set a size restriction for my

images. The limit that I set was 500KB for an
image that was over 2000kb.

The image I selected was originally a 3gb

PNG file by NASA. It depicts the “Dark Side,”
of the moon, passing over the earth.

Through using the “Optimize to File Size,” feature through

Photoshop CC 2019, I was able to generate the best
settings for 4 different file types.

17
WEB
GOOGLE CHROME

{Insert Pink Floyd Reference}

I tried to get the best quality I

could out of every file type while
considering my size limit.

This NASA image was very

texture heavy, and the original
PNG-24 file could not be
reduced to under 500kb. That
left me with converting the
image to JPEG, or limiting the
color number and exporting
through PNG-8 or GIF.

When compared side by side,

GIF had the worst performance.
The Dithering is obvious, and it
couldn’t support enough colors
to recreate the same colors.
Original PNG-8
JPEG seemed to handle the
color the best, however the
macroblocking is very apparent
when zoomed in at 200%. This
shouldn’t be an issue though for
Web.

The magical number for PNG-

8 files was 46. It was able to
support 46 colors without going
over the threshold. However, 46
colors were not enough to fully
represent the vast contrast of
the moon.

JPEG GIF

18
CONCLUSION
GOALS + STANDARD

Takeaway
In a perfect world where file sizes could be whatever we want them
to be and there was no limititations on pixel size, images would look
pretty good. Viewing the images at 100% for JPEG the differences
weren’t completely obvious. Sure there was some macroblocks here
and there, but the image quality wasn’t as bad as originally expected.

Most of the errors that are comitted in this day and age, is when
images aren’t used on a pixel:pixel ratio, or if the wrong export option
is used (a PNG or GIF vs JPEG).

However, for best practice for high quality images here are the main
takeaways:

-Avoid re-compressing image as much as possible. This even applys

when you are using “100% Quality”.
-Don’t use random pre-sets on Photoshop without understanding
how they alter the image.
-JPEG 2000 is great for storage, but keep in mind it’s compatible with
almost nothing.
-When size matters, JPEG’s codex is good for compressing images
with lots of colors and PNG (or even SVGs) for images with not as
many colors.
-Be open to superior/newer file types such as WebP, but consider the
usability tradeoff.

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 VIDEO FORMATS

IMAGE FORMATS
VIDEO FORMATS
OVERVIEW

Containers & Codecs mp4 Moving Pictures Experts Group 4

Before discussing different video file formats, it’s important to define some key A container originally based off Apple’s Quicktime Format. MP4’s
terminology. Most often when we associate video file formats with containers. compression retains a high definition with a relatively small file size. It’s
Containers can be thought of as folders which bind files (video, sound, metadata) this feature that makes .mp4 files so common today.
together to output a video. Some common containers file extensions are .mp4, .mov,
and .mkv.
mov Quicktime Movie
Inside each container are various Codecs which do a couple things. The Codec is Mov files are developed by Apple. They are known to have very good
used to shrink the file size (either video or audio) through coding so that it is more quality for their file size. They are typically encoded with mpeg-4, and can
manageable. As well as decode the file whenever the play button is pressed. Without run on either Windows or Mac.
the Codec the files could not be read. Some common video codec formats are h.264,
avi Audio Video Interleave
Avi files were originally developed by Microsoft. They are compressed less
Container (mp4, mov, mkv) than mov or mp4 files which makes their file size bigger. Codecs can also
vary with .avi files since a standard hasn’t been established.

mpeg Moving Pictures Experts Group

MPEG files are kind of the bare bones of video containers. They do not
support menus or subtitles, and are very restricted in the audio files they
use as well. They also only support MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 codec. These
restrivctions help MPEG files be predictable, but limit usability.
Video Codec(h.265, h.264, etc.)

mkv Maltroska Multimedia Container

MKV files became popular because of their freely licensed format. They
are not restricted by any patents or fees, and anyone can modify these
Audio Codec(FLAC, AAC, MP3, etc.) files for their personal needs.

webm Google
WebM was the Google’s sister project for making WebP, an image file
format. Originally based off the mkv container, both WebM and its codec
(VP9) are royalty free. It has proved to have better quality and be more
Other (Metadata, Subtitles, etc.)
efficient than its predecessors.

21
VIDEO COMPRESSION
STANDARD

Meet the Players

Four different videos were taken and exported 4 different ways all at
29.97FPS (Frames per Second).

MP4 H.264 Youtube 1080i
MP4 HEVC (H.265)
MOV Apple ProRes 422
MPG MPEG-2

A side by side comparison was then formed. These videos were

chosen due to their high contrast in color as well as the different
things they display (faces, hair, numbers, and nature.

MP4_H.264_Youtube
Container Codec Defining Feature

Why not 60FPS

The original videos we’re recorded at about 29FPS (Frames per
Second). When exported as 60FPS the Codec was forced to create
an extra 31 frames every second out of nothing. To do this each
codec would duplicate the previous frame so that every 2 frames are
identical.

This on average made the file size 20% larger where the quality level
remained the same

Cambodia Mahjong Train Food

Duration: 0:15 Duration: 0:12 Duration: 0:10 Duration: 0:10

22
VIDEO EXPORT
STANDARD

Export
All videos started out as an HD resolution MP4 H.264 format. They were then
exported through Adobe Premiere Pro. From here a 1:1 preview was opened through
QuickTime, and a PNG screenshot was taken of the entire image. The images were
then uploaded to Indesign and zoomed in 200% so that fine details could be seen.

Some of the effects seen are caused from the PNG export and not the video itself.
Normally the videos would be directly imported into the PDF document, however file
types such as MPEG and HEVC are not supported. Thus all were uploaded as PNG’s
for consistency.

23
VIDEO COMPRESSION
TRAIN

Blue Hat
Right off the ‘hat’ the wider range of colors that MOV supports is
MP4 H.264 Youtube MP4 HEVC
noticable. The video overall looks darker and many artifacts are
visible. Compare this to the MPG file which overally looks smoother
but supports less colors.

MOV ProRes 422 MPG MPEG-2

24
VIDEO COMPRESSION
CAMBODIA

Stacks
The MPG file has taken the smoke stack and turned it into one
MP4 H.264 Youtube MP4 HEVC
big blob. Whereas the rest of the files can support the smaller see
through smaces. The Youtube export seems to show a bit more darker
colors than the HEVC as well.

MOV ProRes 422 MPG MPEG-2

25
VIDEO COMPRESSION
FOOD

Hair
My wife on a train in China was the perfect way to showcase how
MP4 H.264 Youtube MP4 HEVC
video compression effects hair. The color seems warmer with the
MPG output as a pinkish shade appears in the background. Both
the HEVC and the MOV seem to capture the finer detail while the
Youtube video seems to have an overall lighter tone.

MOV ProRes 422 MPG MPEG-2

26
VIDEO COMPRESSION
MAHJONG

Tiles
These Mahjong tiles are another great example at looking at finer
MP4 H.264 Youtube MP4 HEVC
details. Once again the MPG file seems to have the worst quality
and have the most blurred numbers. The other 3 seem to be pretty
consistent in quality.

MOV ProRes 422 MPG MPEG-2

27
VIDEO COMPRESSION
SIZE COMPARISON

Food
Cambodia
219MB
211MB
Train
Mahjong
188MB

173MB

30.9MB 29.5MB 30.1MB 29.1MB

25MB 23.7MB
21MB 20.1MB 19.5
13.4MB 11.5MB 13.4MB
.mov .mpg .mov .mpg .mov .mpg .mov .mpg
Youtube HEVC Youtube HEVC Youtube HEVC Youtube HEVC

28
VIDEO FORMATS
ALIASING

Jagged Edges SuperSampling (SSAA)

Aliasing happens when a curved object is shown on a pixelated screen. The pixels can
make the object look like it has jagged square edges, or artifacts, especially when the
images size is increased.
Anti-Aliasing is a process that occurs to combat this jagged pixelated look. There are a
variety of different methods that will be listed below. It’s important to note that with
the introduction of 4k resolution (3840 × 2160) and retina screens, Anti-Aliasing is not
needed like it once was. Pixels are becoming more and more dense to the point where
the eye cannot detect the edges.
SuperSampling increases the display resolution of the video, and then scales it down
to fit the resolution of the screen. This gives each pixel a more accurate color, and
smooths out edges significantly. It’s the best looking solution, but is very taxing on the
computer.
Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA)
Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing focuses directly on edges in a video or game. It then will
compare the color of the pixel edges to the sourrounding colors. The picture will look
better the more samples are used, but more processing power will be used as well.

Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA)

Aliased Anti-Aliased
FXAA targets the entire screen instead of specific edges. It applys an entire filter to
the screen that’s meant to smooth out all of the edges. It will be an overall faster
approach, but can make the image seem blurry.

Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA)

MLAA was processed by AMD and is a direct rival to FXAA. Like FXAA it applys a filter
to smooth out all of the pixels instead of targeting geometric shapes and edges.

29
 USE CASE SCENARIO

IMAGE FORMATS

30
WEB
SAFARI

Phase 2
The next step was to send the videos through my use case scenario test by publishing
them on the web. Through using HTML I was able to make a video tag that would
display the full resolution. The catch was that for web best practices I had to keep the
video under 7MB. This required me to be more selective when it came to exporting.

The export options I chose were...

MP4 H.265 720p

MP4 H.264 480p Vimeo
MP4 H.264 1080p Twitter
MPG MPEG-2 PAL DV

In the end all of them ended up being under 7MB for a 10 second clip with MPG as
the largest file (6.7MB) and Twitter 1080P being the smallest (3.2MB).

From here the videos were added through HTML coding, and accessed through Safari
(side note Google Chrome wouldn’t support the .mpg file format)

31
WEB
SAFARI

Limited Space
When size matters so does the exporting format. When keeping it under 7MB the
differences became a lot more obvious. The first surprise came with the 1080p Twitter MP4 H.264 480p Vimeo MP4 H.265 720p
export option. Although it was listed as HD and the output had the largest resolution,
the quality was severely lacking. In fact, exporting at a lower resolution and having it
scaled larger had less artifacts and better aliasing.

Another surprise came when looking at the MPG format. This had the largest file type,
but arguably the worst quality. Granted .mpg files are the oldest out of the bunch, but
it brings up the question “how much of quality loss is due to old file format exports?”

MP4 H.264 1080p Twitter MPG MPEG-2 PAL DV

32
 AUDIO FORMATS

IMAGE FORMATS
AUDIO FORMATS
OVERVIEW

Primitive to Present wav Waveform Audio

Sound is just a series of air particles that move around and create a wave formation.
These air-particles enter our ear drums, and after our brains do some processing
sound is produced. The first sound recording devices did exactly this. They would
measure air particle movement through microphones, and then scratch the sound
wave into the record (or wax cylinder if we’re getting really primitive). The downside
was that the more a record was played, the more distorted the original etched sound-
wave would become, and instead of a nice crisp sound, static was introduced.
When sound was digitized the etching process was done away with. Instead the
sound wave could be plotted through various 0s and 1s and bit-rates were introduced
in various tiers. The higher the bit-rate the more plots were made on the sound wave
graph reducing the amount of static. This would in return make the file-size larger. In
this age where 2GB could contain all the music one could dream of, the race became
not who could create the best sounding format, but who could do it with the least
space.
An uncompressed media file. The most true to the original file recording,
however is encumbered by its large file size and lack of compatibility.
aac Apple
Apple’s equivalent of the MP3 file. With it’s exclusive coding method it’s
said to have the same quality as a high bit-rate MP3 file, while taking up
less data. It dates all the way back to 1997 and is the default for all Apple
devices.
mp3 Moving Pictures Experts Group Layer 3 - Audio
The most common and universal audio file. MP3s use a lossy compression
and can have a bit-rate between 96-320Kbps (Kilobytes per second). It
was originally released back in 1993 and can support multiple channels.
Any quality higher than 320Kbps is thought to be unrecognizable.

Fast-forward to mid 2010 and the music industry was changed again. Music piracy
was running rampant with consumers outraged by the rising prices to own music,
especially when one could stream Youtube for free (even without ads in those days).
This begged the question whether it was needed to own music or not, and many
people made the switch to streaming services such as Apple Music or Spotify.

All audio will be sampled at 44,100 Hz with a sampling rate of 16 bits per sample.

34
AUDIO COMPRESSION
MP3 320kbps

Standard
All songs were played through a 4 channel speaker through Bluetooth 4.1. Some of
the loss in sound quality was due to playing through Bluetooth, however this did not
skew the results since all the files were played in a similar manner.

The following file types were exported...

MP3 320kbps
M4A 256kbps
WMA 192kbps

The Original
MP3 is arguably the most common form of audio output these days, but does it live
up to its standard. Overall it had a good range, and really had a good amount of audio
depth to it. The highs as well as the lows sounded really crisp. There was an audible
amount of static in the background, but this was most likely amplified from being
played through bluetooth vs. an aux cable.

35
AUDIO COMPRESSION
M4A 256 KBPS

Apple’s equivalent
Apple originally designed the .m4a file to compete with the .mp3. Said to have the
same file quality but a larger size, the file was put to the test. It preformed surprisingly
well too! The sound seemed almost identical to that of the 320kbps .mp3 file. One
interesting thing to note though, is when converted through iTunes and uploaded
to audacity to view, it came out as a mono file instead of a stereo file. This seems to
be however a compatibility issue with using an arguably outdated software such as
Audacity that lacks support for such file types.

36
AUDIO COMPRESSION
WMA 192KBPS

Windows Media
Out of the 3 audio formats .wma was the one that lacked the most in terms of audio
quality. This could be because of it’s lower bitrate compared to the other 2 file
formats. During parts of the song with reverb it sounded a bit tinny and lacked a bit of
the sound depth the other 2 had.

37
 USE CASE SCENARIO

IMAGE FORMATS

38
WEB
GOOGLE CHROME

Compatibility
The 3 audio formats were then added through HTML to test sound quality through
Google Chrome. However, this was very short lived because only the .mp3 file was
directly compatible through HTML5. The sound quality through adding it seemed to
be relatively unchanged as well.

39
 CONCLUSION

IMAGE FORMATS

40
CONCLUSION
TAKEAWAY

Final Remarks
Whether it comes to images, video, or audio: file types matter. It’s not good enough
to use a file type just because it’s popular, or it’s been used for a long time without
considering the pros and cons of each one. Not all popular file formats have the best
quality, but when it comes to compatibility they are usually unmatched.

Such are the constraints we need to know if we call ourselves designers. Carelessly
choosing file types, and bad organization techniques will inevitably lead to quality loss,
and that’s not okay.

Because if we don’t take a stand against bad file type practices, who will?

41