Master it Monday-- Save as TIFF

If you are new to digital scrapbooking, all of the ways your can and should save your projects can be a little overwhelming. Not only on you, but on your hard disk space. PSD files (Adobe Photoshop Document) are very large files. The more layers you have, the larger the PSD file. But these type of files are so important to save because they preserve the layers and therefore, allow you to go back in and edit them if needed. So how do you save a layered project and not take up so much space? Take a look at the title of this post for a hint. Yup, TIFF files. Not that it will really affect your scrapbooking, but TIFF stand for Tagged Image File Format. What will affect your scrapbooking is that it is a way to save your layered projects using less space (sometimes up to 1/2 that of a PSD file).
Take a look at the screen shot below. I have the exact same layout saved as a PSD and a TIFF. The PSD is 124264KB while the TIFF is 83349KB. That is a considerable saving in disk space, which means you can do more layouts.Another thing I really like about saving as a TIFF is that the Windows Viewer will let me see the layout instead of just an icon for the file type. This makes it a lot easier when trying to find a specific layout.To get the benefit of the reduced file size, you need to save the image with certain settings. Let's get started. This is pretty simple. When you start you layout go to File>Save it will open the save window. Go to the file format drop down menu (click on the arrow to the right of the format option window). At the very bottom of the menu is the TIFF format. Select TIFF (1) and then click on the Save button (2).
A TIFF options window will open up. First, for image compression you are going to select LZW. Do not be concerned by the term compression, LZW is lossless compression. That means that your layout will not lose any of its quality or resolution. It will be as you designed it (12"x12" at 300dpi).
Second, for the Pixel Order, select Interleaved. It really is not too important which pixel order you choose, but Interleaved is recognized by more programs.
Third, the byte order is determined by your machine. Since I use a PC, I choose that. But again, this really does not matter much anymore, as either byte order can be read by either machine if you have program that uses TIFF.
Fourth, for layer compression I choose ZIP. This is for the smaller file size. When you have all of your options selected, click on OK.
You will most liked get a little pop up window that says " Including layers will increase file size". You can check the box next to "Don't Show Again" to avoid seeing the message in the future. and click Ok.
There, you go. You just saved your layout as a TIFF. Although most tutorials for learning digital scrapbook will teach you to save in PSD (mine does). I now only save my layouts in two formats: TIFF-with all the layers and the a flattened image as a JPEG.