Well, it seems TIFFs are pretty complex guys, and can even be pure containers for JPG data! So you could have a TIFF that's actually a JPG...
But they can also do something JPG can't: be lossless. That's the only point, and the one uppity puritans will never cease enjoying beating into your head.
It ultimately depends on purpose, which is something the puritans don't take into account (which is only to be expected - lossy versus lossless is something of a "religious war" (computing has contained many religious wars), and as you might expect from the first word of that title, most of the people involved don't listen to reason), but which is vital to the argument.
If you're doing something extremely important which is going to be printed enormous scale or where you need precise detail, use a TIFF. Unless you specifically know you need to do this, however, a JPG (set at high enough quality, naturally) is almost always perfectly fine.
Most monitors, printers, and eyes, won't notice a difference.
It's the same in the audio world, with MP3 versus FLAC. Yes, FLAC files might well be lovely, but the vast majority of music reproduction hardware out there won't make anything more of the extra data in a FLAC file than that found in a (decently encoded) MP3.
*CAVEAT*: if there's colourspace issues, as highlighted by Jinx the other day, that may play more of a factor. I'm not up on TIFF and colourspaces, though, and have done enough reading for one day already ;)
You'll not find resolution to this argument here. Or likely anywhere. I shoot everything in raw and jpg simultaneously on my pocket camera and DSLR. My iPhone does not offer that option.
It isn't so much the file, as what you are doing with it, and how.
Like @eyebrows says, TIF is (or can be) lossless. JPEG is compressed (in a big way). So, if you are editing the image, a JPEG will degrade in quality, while a TIF won't. JPEG supports 8-bit colour, maximum, so there's an issue right there - in regards to colour management, this is a royal PITA! But as an output file? Well, JPEG isn't too bad for that, because you're not changing it from that point on.
I'm going to be a little controversial here, and say that those studio photographers you mentioned know very little about colour management. Alternatively, they were misquoted, or were responding to a specific aspect of the file types. If it is the former, well, it is nothing out of the ordinary - many excellent photographers don't have a clue about colour management, aren't very technically-minded in regards to computers and file formats, or both. That stuff gets really nerdy, really quickly. Listen to your teacher.
But then, look at what is being done with the files. Many studios do almost no work to their images - they shoot JPEG, do a one-button b&w conversion for an alternative, and publish the gallery. Pixi et al operate like that, because their work is based on volume sales at a lower-end target market - there is no point, for them, in spending time processing raw image files. Time costs money.
When I send files to a lab for printing, I send JPEG. I have to, because TIF files are so big. When I print for myself, I send TIF to the printer. The difference is not massive, but I can definitely see it in comparisons. But, and this is a major point, when I send JPEG files to be printed, they have been processed as raw files, saved as TIF, and only created as JPEG right at the very end. I have full control over the file, including how it is converted to JPEG at the end. This ensures that the JPEG is the absolute highest quality JPEG obtainable, and that it has not suffered degradation via editing. There is very little (important) data lost, from final edit on the TIF, to conversion to JPEG as an output file (though colour gradations will suffer under certain circumstances).
JPEG was always intended as an output file, for web display - it is compressed, as far as it is possible to do so without totally destroying the image. TIF was always intended as a way of retaining the most amount of data - it is the only way to go for fine art printing (more displayable colours) and for any editing beyond (minor) corrections and adjustments.
In relation to colour space issues, well, using JPEG doesn't really stop you from using large colour spaces such as AdobeRGB or the massive ProPhotoRGB, but it does affect (in a bad way) how well they can be displayed. JPEG 8-bit colour means you are "chopping up" the colours in your shot into larger chunks, which means that you are taking several different though similar shades and showing it all as the being the same. That's what "banding" is, in a nutshell. It can be hard to avoid, and in some cases totally impossible to avoid, with a JPEG file.
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But they can also do something JPG can't: be lossless. That's the only point, and the one uppity puritans will never cease enjoying beating into your head.
It ultimately depends on purpose, which is something the puritans don't take into account (which is only to be expected - lossy versus lossless is something of a "religious war" (computing has contained many religious wars), and as you might expect from the first word of that title, most of the people involved don't listen to reason), but which is vital to the argument.
If you're doing something extremely important which is going to be printed enormous scale or where you need precise detail, use a TIFF. Unless you specifically know you need to do this, however, a JPG (set at high enough quality, naturally) is almost always perfectly fine.
Most monitors, printers, and eyes, won't notice a difference.
It's the same in the audio world, with MP3 versus FLAC. Yes, FLAC files might well be lovely, but the vast majority of music reproduction hardware out there won't make anything more of the extra data in a FLAC file than that found in a (decently encoded) MP3.
*CAVEAT*: if there's colourspace issues, as highlighted by Jinx the other day, that may play more of a factor. I'm not up on TIFF and colourspaces, though, and have done enough reading for one day already ;)
Like @eyebrows says, TIF is (or can be) lossless. JPEG is compressed (in a big way). So, if you are editing the image, a JPEG will degrade in quality, while a TIF won't. JPEG supports 8-bit colour, maximum, so there's an issue right there - in regards to colour management, this is a royal PITA! But as an output file? Well, JPEG isn't too bad for that, because you're not changing it from that point on.
I'm going to be a little controversial here, and say that those studio photographers you mentioned know very little about colour management. Alternatively, they were misquoted, or were responding to a specific aspect of the file types. If it is the former, well, it is nothing out of the ordinary - many excellent photographers don't have a clue about colour management, aren't very technically-minded in regards to computers and file formats, or both. That stuff gets really nerdy, really quickly. Listen to your teacher.
But then, look at what is being done with the files. Many studios do almost no work to their images - they shoot JPEG, do a one-button b&w conversion for an alternative, and publish the gallery. Pixi et al operate like that, because their work is based on volume sales at a lower-end target market - there is no point, for them, in spending time processing raw image files. Time costs money.
When I send files to a lab for printing, I send JPEG. I have to, because TIF files are so big. When I print for myself, I send TIF to the printer. The difference is not massive, but I can definitely see it in comparisons. But, and this is a major point, when I send JPEG files to be printed, they have been processed as raw files, saved as TIF, and only created as JPEG right at the very end. I have full control over the file, including how it is converted to JPEG at the end. This ensures that the JPEG is the absolute highest quality JPEG obtainable, and that it has not suffered degradation via editing. There is very little (important) data lost, from final edit on the TIF, to conversion to JPEG as an output file (though colour gradations will suffer under certain circumstances).
JPEG was always intended as an output file, for web display - it is compressed, as far as it is possible to do so without totally destroying the image. TIF was always intended as a way of retaining the most amount of data - it is the only way to go for fine art printing (more displayable colours) and for any editing beyond (minor) corrections and adjustments.
In relation to colour space issues, well, using JPEG doesn't really stop you from using large colour spaces such as AdobeRGB or the massive ProPhotoRGB, but it does affect (in a bad way) how well they can be displayed. JPEG 8-bit colour means you are "chopping up" the colours in your shot into larger chunks, which means that you are taking several different though similar shades and showing it all as the being the same. That's what "banding" is, in a nutshell. It can be hard to avoid, and in some cases totally impossible to avoid, with a JPEG file.