most popular, compatible with all photo software and all on-line photo print and photo sharing services

produces small, compact files suitable for non-archival purposes such as e-mail attachments or web page use

usually uses "lossy" compression which means that the size of the scan is relatively small, but some of the image quality is lost

versatile, compatible with most photo software and some on-line photo print and photo sharing services

produces large files of very high quality suitable for archival purposes and editing and modifying files

usually uses "lossless" compression which means that the size of the scan is large, but there is no lost of the image quality

uncompressed format suitable for storing proprietary bitmaps used mostly for a Windows operating system

produces large files without compression