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
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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.
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JPEG
Joint Photographic
Experts
Group
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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.
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PNG
Portable
Network
Graphics
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Designed as a replacement for GIF -- it has many additional
features, and even produces smaller image files. This format
is not yet widely supported.
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