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JPEG and GIF image formats
are both compression based formats.
They are the most widely used and supported image formats for
web. They take an uncompressed image such as bitmapped image and
compress them to a smaller file size. A lot smaller image size
is moreover the result of this conversion. It may seem that one
compression may result in smaller file sizes, nevertheless that
is simply not the case. Now where lays the difference?
JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. It supports
16.7 million colors. It is ideal for photographic images and
high quality images. JPEG is a loss less method of compression or
in common parlance, when the program that creates a GIF squashes
the original image down to ensure not to lose any data. It uses
an easy substitution method of compression.
GIF on the other hand, stands for Graphic Interchange Format. It
supports only a maximum of 256 colors. It is the only
alternative to make an image animated unless you want to use
Flash. Between GIF and JPEG, only GIF allows transparency. GIF
is good for images with flat expenses of color. It can be use
for logos, titles, button, etc. The maximum compression of GIF
depends on the amount of repetition there is in an image. A flat
color can compress well to even one tenth of the original size
while a complex non-competitive color will save approximately
20%.
GIF format is good at compressing images with a small number of
colors with no gradations. In actual fact, most web graphics are
saved in GIF by contrast when applied to JPEG, it usually
results in images which are larger than their GIF counterparts
and may appear corrupted.
Each image format has its own advantage. GIF may win out with
the non-dithering, fewer color images while JPEG is excellent
for dithered continuous tone images. An example to this is a
photograph with several colors, shadows and even gradations. All
these colors and shades call for the JPEG format.
JPEGs disadvantage is that it throws away parts of an image to
save space. Apparently you just can't discard any piece of
information so what JPEG does is divide the image into squares.
GIF is short of colors, that's a blatant fact. Another
disadvantage is that, Unisys discovered that it owned several
patents to key parts of the GIF compression technology and has
started demanding fees from every company which uses the GIF
code. This is the reason why progress was muffled. Now that you
already know the difference, you can now pick what's good for
you.
About the author: Maricon Williams
For comments and inquiries about the article visit
http://www.ucreative.com
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