Compression (or not) of image files

[David_Juhlin]

We have a request to store photos "in their original format", without compression, etc.

I know that OnBase will generally compress text and other files, and I see in the MRG that we can set INI settings (for the Thick Client) or CompressMode, but before I spend a lot of time testing, I hope someone has a definitive answer to this question:

How can we ensure these photos (most likely JPEG files) are not compressed/altered when they are stored in OnBase?

(Does it matter if the photos are swept into a scan queue vs imported? Does the use of the Thick Client vs Unity Client have an impact?) 

Thanks,
David

[Sean_Killian · Accepted solution]

Hi, David,

I highly recommend reaching out to your first line of support to determine whether or not you can guarantee images are not re-converted/compressed after import.

You could try hashing an image, importing it, exporting it, and then hashing the exported copy to see if it's the same actual image, but even if it is, I would want a guarantee from Hyland that that behavior won't change in the future.

I'm honestly not sure if files stored in the Image File Format are ever changed, but I know custom file formats don't.  We store binary files in OnBase and they don't change between import and export, so what you could do is define your own image file format and import documents under that format. This might be unnecessary if Image File Formats also don't change, though.

Something else worth noting:  The application or web servers have settings to dynamically recompress images when users open them.  I doubt that affects the image that gets downloaded if you send to file- it may only be the viewer -but if you use the web client, I recommend checking with Hyland on that, too.

[David_Juhlin]

I opened a ticket with my FLOS; they did some testing but could not provide a 'definitive' answer. 

I imported a couple files myself (using a Doc Type that defaults to the Image File Format), and compared the source with the copy on the disk group - they are the same.  I downloaded one from the web page and it gave me options to Save As: [Rendered Format | Original Format | PDF | Encrypted PDF | Image | Zip].  I chose 'Original Format'.  I don't  know how to hash images, so I just compared the original and the downloaded copy using Notepad ++, and they compared exactly.  So I am confident these will not be further compressed/altered by storing them in OnBase.

Thanks,
David