 If you've ever saved an image as a JPEG, and being a photographer in the digital age chances are you're familiar with JPEGs, you've no doubt seen the option to save your JPEG as Progressive. Resist the temptation. Don't do it. Ever. Unless you are working on a website designed to be viewed by someone with a dial-up connection, you have no need to ever save a JPEG as progressive. But why, you ask. Being "progressive" is generally a good thing right? Unless we're talking about Rock and Roll, no. Progressive JPEGs were designed to load in small increments to give the illusion that an image on a web page is loading quicker than it really is. The image starts out as a few lines or as a pixellated mess (see left image) and gradually sharpens until the picture is loaded. Sounds harmless enough, but that type of JPEG is basically ignored by modern digital minilabs. Nine times out of ten when a machine such as the Fuji Frontier or Noritsu 3202 refuses to print a digital file, it is because said file is a progressive JPEG. That format just confuses the machines.
So resist the allure of being "progressive" and stick with baseline standard or baseline optimized (better compression).
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