Why would JPG be better? JPG is a lossy medium, PNG lossless. Also, JPG artefacts badly at sharp transitions, which lithographs and engravings are largely defined by. Adam Cuerden00:00, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is a lithograph, which by its nature is defined by sharp transitions - note the frequent contrast between dark and light elements, particularly in the middle section, with the sailor uniforms. PNG handles sharp transitions just fine, whereas JPEG cannot handle sharp transitions without artefacting. On a chiariscuro image like this, JPG is thus a bad choice. Adam Cuerden12:01, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So, lets say there is an extreme example of a photograph critic who was obsessed with artifacts, then png would be the best choice? What I learned that were the differences in the different formats and how they handled images, the thing that made jpeg so good for photographic use was the artifacts. Has this changed? -- carol (tomes) 13:59, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
JPG is optimised for photography of natural scenes and so on, not necessarily of artworks, particularly not chiariscuro ones. Adam Cuerden17:30, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]