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Image Files and the Web

Image File Formats

There are literally hundreds of different formats for storing images as digital files. However, for the Web, there are really only two (soon 3) formats you should use. These are:


GIF
Graphics Interchange Format
Only allows images with 256 colors, but stores the image in a compressed format, to keep them small.
  • Good for -- icons, logos and clipart-like graphics.
  • Bad for -- photographs or other images that do not have large blocks of solid colors. Use JPEG instead.
 
 
JPEG
Joint Photographic Experts Group
Allows images with millions of colors. Stores the image in a compressed format that works best for photograph-like images (irregular textures and colors). Works poorly on images with lots of solid color regions.
  • Good for -- photographs or other images that do not have large blocks of solid colors.
  • Bad for -- icons, logos and clipart-like graphics. Use GIF instead.
 
 
PNG
Portable Network Graphics
Designed as a replacement for GIF -- it has many additional features, and even produces smaller image files. This format is not yet widely supported.
 
Examples ~ More Examples

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