TIFF, JPEG in Photoshop questions

[jrong]

I am contemplating making a 8x10" photo book with Blurb. I am using Silverfast Ai scanning software for the first time and have noticed that I can save my scans as:
1) TIFF
2) JPEG (12-bit)
3) JPEG 2000

Since (2) and (3) can't seem to be opened by Photoshop, I have to resort to saving in TIFF format. I am scanning as 16-bit greyscale (all B+W images) and the scans have great tonality. However, once I've imported into Photoshop, I need to reduce the image size to 10x8 inches, at 300 dpi for inclusion into the book. This seems to give me files of about 11MB size as a TIFF file. And Blurb's software will only accept JPG or PNG, it seems. So I have to change Image Mode to 8-bit before I can save the images in Photoshop as JPG. I'm a little doubtful about doing this, how much image quality do I end up losing in this case? Is there any way around this?

Jin

 

[kuzano]

Save at highest quality JPEG

Save at highest quality JPEG

Save out of photoshop as a JPEG. When the dialogue box for the rate of compression (quality) comes up, run the slider up to highest quality. As long as there are no ensuing "saves" to JPEG on this same file, the compressions should have no perceivable image loss. That's presuming that the Blurb requirement is for JPEG only with no file size limitation.

The slider for saving image quality sets the aggressiveness of the loss of data during compression. You would use lower numbers (more compression) to achieve a smaller byte file size, hence throwing away more data.

 

[ampguy]

I talked with a tech guy at blurb, and he recommended that PNGs gave the best output with their books over JPG. Give them a call tomorrow, or email them. I'm sure they'll reocommend some SW, or tell you what tradeoffs to expect in output quality.