When you're

saving pictures

to your hard drive or saving pictures to post online or email, you're going to want to know about

lossy vs. lossless image compression

. Stacy Reed explains this important computing concept.

There are programs on your computer that seem ubiquitous; you might not know what they are specifically, or what exactly it is that they do. WinZip is a fine example; it's one of those computer concepts that have become a verb. Like "Google it" for search, "tweet" for share and the like, "Zip it" has become synonymous with file compression. Miss Download explains.

Many files on your computer can get quite large. This is true of documents, text files, photos, and more. You can use WinRAR to

compress files into a RAR archive

and make them smaller.

There are a large number of compression formats available. The best known is the ZIP format created by Phil Katz in 1986. Another popular compression program is WinRAR. It creates compressed files that have the file extension .RAR.

You may have heard of the RAW file format as it pertains to digital cameras. This file format is found mostly in digital SLR (single lens reflex) cameras and is sometimes called a "digital negative." It allows a lot more room for editing on your computer but comes with some trade-offs in file size and camera-side image processing. Tune in as the Lab Rats demystify RAW to find out if RAW is right for you.

Maybe you want to send 10 or more pictures to friends and family via email or perhaps you're looking to store some files that you don't access regularly but that you don't want to lose. We've looked at creating a compressed or zipped archive using WinZip previously. In this tutorial we'll look at creating an archive with software that's included in Windows.