[BEAST]

JPEG covers were all I used a few months ago and now I only use PNG & TIFF files. They are so much more vivid and crisp. Even when I post them on social media I can tell the difference. I upload TIFF files on Amazon and I've not noticed a change in my royalty amount on my $2.99 and $5.99 stories. Anyone else giving up JPEG images? I know everyone says they are better for website load times but I've clocked the difference and it's only a millisecond longer to load. The big issue is image size.

 

[Secret Pen Pal]

Thanks for the tip. I've been doing all JPEGs. What dimensions to you use? I've been doing 1590 x 2500 for the ratio Amazon specifies. I tried wider ones for my first box sets and they turned out distorted.

 

[SB James]

I've been trying PNG files where I can, but certain places will still only take JPEG or sometimes TIFF. I think TIFF is definitely a better image result if you can use them!

 

[baldricko]

Are you designing your own covers?

Don't most of the designers for Amazon send files to authors in JPEG format? I don't think resaving the file in TIFF or PNG would improve the quality, so I can't see the real advantage.

I might be misreading your post though.

 

[Katharina]

JPEG covers were all I used a few months ago and now I only use PNG & TIFF files. They are so much more vivid and crisp. Even when I post them on social media I can tell the difference.

I started using PNG when I made covers for my Danish books, and it really makes all the difference.
Haven't tried it on Amazon yet, but I will. It gives a more clear image with better colours.

 

[Patty Jansen]

The thing about JPG files is that you can save the file at any compression level. It gives you this option before you save.

You never use JPG as the baseline format, because every time you save the file, you will lose quality. JPG is a lossy compression, as opposed to TIFF LWZ compression which is loss-less, but still gives humongous files.

If you keep your work in TIFF or photoshop format and save as JPG only when you're done with it for the final version (and keep a copy of the original of course), you can save at 50% quality and get a file which will on a Kindle screen not be visually different from the original.

There is nothing wrong with JPG, but it's a lossy compression, and it's important that you know how to use it.

 

[Adrian Howell]

The thing about JPG files is that you can save the file at any compression level. It gives you this option before you save.

You never use JPG as the baseline format, because every time you save the file, you will lose quality. JPG is a lossy compression, as opposed to TIFF LWZ compression which is loss-less, but still gives humongous files.

If you keep your work in TIFF or photoshop format and save as JPG only when you're done with it for the final version (and keep a copy of the original of course), you can save at 50% quality and get a file which will on a Kindle screen not be visually different from the original.

There is nothing wrong with JPG, but it's a lossy compression, and it's important that you know how to use it.

This.

JPG is the last thing you save it as. All work in progress should be saved in a loss-less format, regardless of file size.

 

[baldricko]

Maximillian,

This,

The thing about JPG files is that you can save the file at any compression level. It gives you this option before you save.

You never use JPG as the baseline format, because every time you save the file, you will lose quality. JPG is a lossy compression, as opposed to TIFF LWZ compression which is loss-less, but still gives humongous files.

If you keep your work in TIFF or photoshop format and save as JPG only when you're done with it for the final version (and keep a copy of the original of course), you can save at 50% quality and get a file which will on a Kindle screen not be visually different from the original.

There is nothing wrong with JPG, but it's a lossy compression, and it's important that you know how to use it.

and this,

This.

JPG is the last thing you save it as. All work in progress should be saved in a loss-less format, regardless of file size.

…yes. Create the cover in a lossless format and save to JPEG to upload when needed.

But if you are talking about converting a cover into a lossless cover bought sent to you by the designer to upload to say Amazon, then I don't get the advantage. Some pre-made covers (maybe most) are delivered as JPEGs to authors. In this case there isn't any gain I can see in converting to a lossless format to upload.

 

[unkownwriter]

I always think about uploading a .tff file to Amazon, but never do it. I just do a .jpg and it looks fine to me when I check out the book page. I do my own covers, and I save the .psd file for any corrections, and save a .jpg which I can then resize for whatever use I need. I guess I should look into doing something else, since devices are changing.

The only thing I use .tff for is the photos of my parents I'm restoring. 600 dpi for those, too.

 

[Douglas Milewski]

When I'm exporting from Inkscape, I must export into PNG then use GIMP to convert into JPG. I do a live preview of the export and slide down until I see some defect. Usually, I can get away with 50%. Given my preference, I use PNG, but Amazon doesn't like that. I still think that my JPGs look quite nice.

The important part is that I get to decide this quality myself.

 

[Patty Jansen]

Maybe I'm wrong but I do see a BIG difference with the quality of the picture when I use the look inside feature on Amazon as well.

If you're seeing a big difference:

1. you're sliding the quality scale on your JPGs waaaayyyy too far down. I wouldn't go any less than 50%. If you leave it at 100%, you should see no difference.
2. You have somehow changed the TIFF standard colour profile settings to CMYK or 32-bit colour. These files are massive and designed for print. Depending on the colour profile of the user's device, they can also look really ugly. Why burden the reader with them, because the Kindle screen is black & white and doesn't show that level of detail.

 

[VMJaskiernia]

I thought Amazon only took JPEG, glad to see PNG is supported too. I'll be used that from now on then.

 

[555aaa]

TIFF isn't on the list of supported image types - so this is confusing to me.

http://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGuidelines.pdf which says

"The Kindle platform supports GIF, BMP, JPEG, non-transparent PNG, and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) images."

The marketing cover (the cover that is shown on the product page) is going to be jpeg. You can tell by doing this: On your Amazon product page, mouse over the cover image, and then right click. Then, select save image as... and in the pop-up dialog box it will tell you that this is a jpeg image.

 

[Patty Jansen]

But, you're saying that the quality scale would impact the anti asailing endemic to JPEG conversion

Of course it does! If you set the quality to 100% there is zilch compression and you end up with a huge file. On a screen you'd be extremely hard pressed (sorry, I know there needs to be a hyphen but the hyphen key doesn't work on my laptop) to tell the difference between a 100% and a 50% quality file, but the size of the 50% file is less than a tenth of the high quality file. I sometimes use JPG files to send to printers, but you always make sure the quality is set to 100%. This matters only for print. If you have a file with large slabs of even colour, keep the setting a bit higher. If it's a photo or an image with multiple hues and shades, 50% will be more than enough. However, when you decide to change the cover a bit, you must discard that JPG and go back to the original Photoshop file. Don't ever save an editable file in JPG. If you have the quality slide set to 50%, it will lose 50% of the quality each time you open and save the file.

 

[Catchy]

Tiff is not supported in browsers. For you or your viewers to see it a third-party plugin is required. You can embed plugins and ActiveX controls in the HTML or webpage (there are likely other methods), but there are plenty of issues doing this.

Jpg loses data upon SAVE. So, if it's just sitting on a webpage, it will always look the same. At 300 dpi, jpg data loss is not really visible with the naked eye even after 100s of saves, but at 72 or 96 dpi/ppi (added for clarity) it is.

PNG works better for color blocks...so if you have a line illustration (depending) or a plain text-only cover, then you probably will find PNG works well.

For photos and more complex images jpg can be the best choice, because you control the size of the file.

Some sites like Facebook optimize images automatically. For this reason people often have trouble with the color red on Facebook. You really do have to play around with the different formats to get one that's acceptable.

 

[Patty Jansen]

dpi has nothing to do with the quality of the file. The only thing it's good for (and it really isn't good for much, TBH) is to tell a printer how close together it needs to print the dots. For work on a screen it makes absolutely zilch difference.

 

[Catchy]

Here's an actual demonstration of lossy format jpgs in action: http://petapixel.com/2010/02/04/saving-jpeg-photos-hundreds-of-times/

 

[Catchy]

dpi has nothing to do with the quality of the file. The only thing it's good for (and it really isn't good for much, TBH) is to tell a printer how close together it needs to print the dots. For work on a screen it makes absolutely zilch difference.

Sorry, I'm using PPI and DPI interchangeably for our purposes. I work with printers, so I just use DPI automatically.

 

[Alan Petersen]

TIFF isn't on the list of supported image types - so this is confusing to me.

http://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGuidelines.pdf which says

"The Kindle platform supports GIF, BMP, JPEG, non-transparent PNG, and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) images."

The marketing cover (the cover that is shown on the product page) is going to be jpeg. You can tell by doing this: On your Amazon product page, mouse over the cover image, and then right click. Then, select save image as... and in the pop-up dialog box it will tell you that this is a jpeg image.

Perhaps that's out dated because here they indicate that they only support JPEG and TIFF files for cover images:

https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A2J0TRG6OPX0VM

Kindle Direct Publishing currently accepts two types of files for cover images:

JPEG (.jpeg / .jpg)
TIFF (.tif /.tiff)

We apply additional compression to images when displaying them on the website. For best results, please upload your images with minimal compression.

As Maxmillion posted, if you click on "upload cover image" in KDP you'll see a popup indicating the file needs to be JPEG or TIFF: