Microsoft PictureIt uses a .mix format. What is this format? How does it compare to .jpg, .png, .fpx, .tga, and .tif? I am very much interested in being able to move an image -- photo, 35mm slide, or negative -- scaned (with a HP Photo Smart scanner) by one computer to another via a 3 1/4 floppy disk. Any sugestions/advice gratefully received. (Should I post this question on 's bboard?)

Many thanks, Bill Dewar

-- bill deewar (dewar@magma.ca), December 21, 1998

Answers

The ".mix" format is (I think) a FlashPix format, but probably has additional stuff thrown in. Your best bet for floppy transfers is probably JPEG (.jpg format): You can jam a lot of image into 1.4 megabytes with reasonable compression levels. Another possibility would be to use the ZipIt utility to split the image files across several disks. (You can specify a maximum "segment size" or somesuch, that will split the Zipped archives into multiple files that will fit a floppy.) You'll still probably want to JPEG it first though, as Zip's compression won't do much for image data. Do note though, that the JPEG format is "lossy", which means you'll take an increasingly large hit in image quality, the more your compress the files.

-- Dave Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), December 26, 1998.