What is the difference between JPG JPEG PNG BMP GIF TIFF Image

Question

I have seen many types of image extensions but have never understood the real differences between them  Are there any links out there that clearly explain their differences   Are there standards to consider when choosing a particular type of image to use in an application   What do we use for web applications

User · Answer

What coobird and Gerald said   Additionally  JPEG is the file format name  JPG is commonly used abbreviated file extension for this format  as you needed to have a 3-letter file extension for earlier Windows systems  Likewise with TIFF and TIF   Web browsers at the moment only display JPEG  PNG and GIF files - so  those are the ones that can be shown on web pages

User · Answer

These names refers to different ways to encode pixel image data  JPG and JPEG are the same thing  and TIFF may just enclose a jpeg with some additional metadata     These image formats may use different compression algorithms  different color representations  different capability in carrying additional data other than the image itself  and so on   For web applications  I d say jpeg or gif is good enough  Jpeg is used more often due to its higher compression ratio  and gif is typically used for light weight animation where a flash  or something similar  is an over kill  or places where transparent background is desired  PNG can be used too  but I don t have much experience with that  BMP and TIFF probably are not good candidates for web applications

User · Answer

You should be aware of a few key factors      First  there are two types of compression  Lossless and Lossy    Lossless means that the image is made smaller  but at no detriment to the quality  Lossy means the image is made  even  smaller  but at a detriment to the quality  If you saved an image in a Lossy format over and over  the image quality would get progressively worse and worse   There are also different colour depths  palettes   Indexed color and Direct color    With Indexed it means that the image can only store a limited number of colours  usually 256  that are chosen by the image author  with Direct it means that you can store many thousands of colours that have not been chosen by the author     BMP - Lossless   Indexed and Direct    This is an old format  It is Lossless  no image data is lost on save  but there s also little to no compression at all  meaning saving as BMP results in VERY large file sizes  It can have palettes of both Indexed and Direct  but that s a small consolation  The file sizes are so unnecessarily large that nobody ever really uses this format   Good for  Nothing really  There isn t anything BMP excels at  or isn t done better by other formats       GIF - Lossless   Indexed only    GIF uses lossless compression  meaning that you can save the image over and over and never lose any data  The file sizes are much smaller than BMP  because good compression is actually used  but it can only store an Indexed palette  This means that there can only be a maximum of 256 different colours in the file  That sounds like quite a small amount  and it is   GIF images can also be animated and have transparency   Good for  Logos  line drawings  and other simple images that need to be small  Only really used for websites       JPEG - Lossy   Direct      JPEGs images were designed to make detailed photographic images as small as possible by removing information that the human eye won t notice  As a result it s a Lossy format  and saving the same file over and over will result in more data being lost over time  It has a palette of thousands of colours and so is great for photographs  but the lossy compression means it s bad for logos and line drawings  Not only will they look fuzzy  but such images will also have a larger file-size compared to GIFs   Good for  Photographs  Also  gradients       PNG-8 - Lossless   Indexed     PNG is a newer format  and PNG-8  the indexed version of PNG  is really a good replacement for GIFs  Sadly  however  it has a few drawbacks  Firstly it cannot support animation like GIF can  well it can  but only Firefox seems to support it  unlike GIF animation which is supported by every browser   Secondly it has some support issues with older browsers like IE6  Thirdly  important software like Photoshop have very poor implementation of the format   Damn you  Adobe   PNG-8 can only store 256 colours  like GIFs   Good for  The main thing that PNG-8 does better than GIFs is having support for Alpha Transparency     Important Note  Photoshop does not support Alpha Transparency for PNG-8 files   Damn you  Photoshop   There are ways to convert Photoshop PNG-24 to PNG-8 files while retaining their transparency  though  One method is PNGQuant  another is to save your files with Fireworks     PNG-24 - Lossless   Direct  PNG-24 is a great format that combines Lossless encoding with Direct color  thousands of colours  just like JPEG   It s very much like BMP in that regard  except that PNG actually compresses images  so it results in much smaller files  Unfortunately PNG-24 files will still be much bigger than JPEGs  GIFs and PNG-8s  so you still need to consider if you really want to use one   Even though PNG-24s allow thousands of colours while having compression  they are not intended to replace JPEG images  A photograph saved as a PNG-24 will likely be at least 5 times larger than a equivalent JPEG image  which very little improvement in visible quality   Of course  this may be a desirable outcome if you re not concerned about filesize  and want to get the best quality image you can    Just like PNG-8  PNG-24 supports alpha-transparency  too   I hope that helps

User · Answer

PNG supports alphachannel transparency   TIFF can have extended options I e  Geo referencing for GIS applications   I recommend only ever using JPEG for photographs  never for images like clip art  logos  text  diagrams  line art   Favor PNG

User · Answer

Since others have covered the differences  I ll hit the uses   TIFF is usually used by scanners   It makes huge files and is not really used in applications   BMP is uncompressed and also makes huge files   It is also not really used in applications   GIF used to be all over the web but has fallen out of favor since it only supports a limited number of colors and is patented   JPG JPEG is mainly used for anything that is photo quality  though not for text   The lossy compression used tends to mar sharp lines   PNG isn t as small as JPEG but is lossless so it s good for images with sharp lines   It s in common use on the web now   Personally  I usually use PNG everywhere I can   It s a good compromise between JPG and GIF

User · Answer

Generally these are either   Lossless compression Lossless compression algorithms reduce file size without losing image quality  though they are not compressed into as small a file as a lossy compression file  When image quality is valued above file size  lossless algorithms are typically chosen   Lossy compression Lossy compression algorithms take advantage of the inherent limitations of the human eye and discard invisible information  Most lossy compression algorithms allow for variable quality levels  compression  and as these levels are increased  file size is reduced  At the highest compression levels  image deterioration becomes noticeable as  compression artifacting   The images below demonstrate the noticeable artifacting of lossy compression algorithms  select the thumbnail image to view the full size version   Each format is different as described below   JPEG JPEG  Joint Photographic Experts Group  files are  in most cases  a lossy format  the DOS filename extension is JPG  other OS might use JPEG   Nearly every digital camera can save images in the JPEG format  which supports 8 bits per color  red  green  blue  for a 24-bit total  producing relatively small files  When not too great  the compression does not noticeably detract from the image s quality  but JPEG files suffer generational degradation when repeatedly edited and saved  Photographic images may be better stored in a lossless non-JPEG format if they will be re-edited  or if small  artifacts   blemishes caused by the JPEG s compression algorithm  are unacceptable  The JPEG format also is used as the image compression algorithm in many Adobe PDF files   TIFF The TIFF  Tagged Image File Format  is a flexible format that normally saves 8 bits or 16 bits per color  red  green  blue  for 24-bit and 48-bit totals  respectively  using either the TIFF or the TIF filenames  The TIFF s flexibility is both blessing and curse  because no single reader reads every type of TIFF file  TIFFs are lossy and lossless  some offer relatively good lossless compression for bi-level  black amp white  images  Some digital cameras can save in TIFF format  using the LZW compression algorithm for lossless storage  The TIFF image format is not widely supported by web browsers  TIFF remains widely accepted as a photograph file standard in the printing business  The TIFF can handle device-specific colour spaces  such as the CMYK defined by a particular set of printing press inks   PNG The PNG  Portable Network Graphics  file format was created as the free  open-source successor to the GIF  The PNG file format supports truecolor  16 million colours  while the GIF supports only 256 colours  The PNG file excels when the image has large  uniformly coloured areas  The lossless PNG format is best suited for editing pictures  and the lossy formats  like JPG  are best for the final distribution of photographic images  because JPG files are smaller than PNG files  Many older browsers currently do not support the PNG file format  however  with Internet Explorer 7  all contemporary web browsers fully support the PNG format  The Adam7-interlacing allows an early preview  even when only a small percentage of the image data has been transmitted   GIF GIF  Graphics Interchange Format  is limited to an 8-bit palette  or 256 colors  This makes the GIF format suitable for storing graphics with relatively few colors such as simple diagrams  shapes  logos and cartoon style images  The GIF format supports animation and is still widely used to provide image animation effects  It also uses a lossless compression that is more effective when large areas have a single color  and ineffective for detailed images or dithered images   BMP The BMP file format  Windows bitmap  handles graphics files within the Microsoft Windows OS  Typically  BMP files are uncompressed  hence they are large  the advantage is their simplicity  wide acceptance  and use in Windows programs    Use for Web Pages   Web Applications  The following is a brief summary for these image formats when using them with a web page   application   PNG is great for IE6 and up  will require a small CSS patch to get transparency working well    Great for illustrations and photos  JPG is great for photos online GIF is good for illustrations when you do not wish to move to PNG BMP shouldn t be used online within web pages - wastes bandwidth   Source  Image File Formats

User · Answer

PNG supports alphachannel transparency   TIFF can have extended options I e  Geo referencing for GIS applications   I recommend only ever using JPEG for photographs  never for images like clip art  logos  text  diagrams  line art   Favor PNG

User · Answer

These names refers to different ways to encode pixel image data  JPG and JPEG are the same thing  and TIFF may just enclose a jpeg with some additional metadata     These image formats may use different compression algorithms  different color representations  different capability in carrying additional data other than the image itself  and so on   For web applications  I d say jpeg or gif is good enough  Jpeg is used more often due to its higher compression ratio  and gif is typically used for light weight animation where a flash  or something similar  is an over kill  or places where transparent background is desired  PNG can be used too  but I don t have much experience with that  BMP and TIFF probably are not good candidates for web applications

User · Answer

These names refers to different ways to encode pixel image data  JPG and JPEG are the same thing  and TIFF may just enclose a jpeg with some additional metadata     These image formats may use different compression algorithms  different color representations  different capability in carrying additional data other than the image itself  and so on   For web applications  I d say jpeg or gif is good enough  Jpeg is used more often due to its higher compression ratio  and gif is typically used for light weight animation where a flash  or something similar  is an over kill  or places where transparent background is desired  PNG can be used too  but I don t have much experience with that  BMP and TIFF probably are not good candidates for web applications

User · Answer

The file extension tells you how the image is saved   Some of those formats just save the bits as they are  some compress the image in different ways  including lossless and lossy methods   The Web can tell you  although I know some of the patient responders will outline them here   The web favors gif  jpg  and png  mostly  JPEG is the same  or very close  to jpg

User · Answer

PNG supports alphachannel transparency   TIFF can have extended options I e  Geo referencing for GIS applications   I recommend only ever using JPEG for photographs  never for images like clip art  logos  text  diagrams  line art   Favor PNG

User · Answer

Yes  They are different file formats  and their file extensions    Wikipedia entries for each of the formats will give you quite a bit of information    JPEG  or JPG  for the file extension  Joint Photographic Experts Group  PNG  Portable Network Graphics  BMP  Bitmap  GIF  Graphics Interchange Format  TIFF  or TIF  for the file extension  Tagged Image File Format    Image formats can be separated into three broad categories    lossy compression  lossless compression  uncompressed    Uncompressed formats take up the most amount of data  but they are exact representations of the image  Bitmap formats such as BMP generally are uncompressed  although there also are compressed BMP files as well   Lossy compression formats are generally suited for photographs  It is not suited for illustrations  drawings and text  as compression artifacts from compressing the image will standout  Lossy compression  as its name implies  does not encode all the information of the file  so when it is recovered into an image  it will not be an exact representation of the original  However  it is able to compress images very effectively compared to lossless formats  as it discards certain information  A prime example of a lossy compression format is JPEG    Lossless compression formats are suited for illustrations  drawings  text and other material that would not look good when compressed with lossy compression  As the name implies  lossless compression will encode all the information from the original  so when the image is decompressed  it will be an exact representation of the original  As there is no loss of information in lossless compression  it is not able to achieve as high a compression as lossy compression  in most cases  Examples of lossless image compression is PNG and GIF   GIF only allows 8-bit images    TIFF and BMP are both  wrapper  formats  as the data inside can depend upon the compression technique that is used  It can contain both compressed and uncompressed images   When to use a certain image compression format really depends on what is being compressed    Related question  Ruthlessly compressing large images for the web

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Yes  They are different file formats  and their file extensions    Wikipedia entries for each of the formats will give you quite a bit of information    JPEG  or JPG  for the file extension  Joint Photographic Experts Group  PNG  Portable Network Graphics  BMP  Bitmap  GIF  Graphics Interchange Format  TIFF  or TIF  for the file extension  Tagged Image File Format    Image formats can be separated into three broad categories    lossy compression  lossless compression  uncompressed    Uncompressed formats take up the most amount of data  but they are exact representations of the image  Bitmap formats such as BMP generally are uncompressed  although there also are compressed BMP files as well   Lossy compression formats are generally suited for photographs  It is not suited for illustrations  drawings and text  as compression artifacts from compressing the image will standout  Lossy compression  as its name implies  does not encode all the information of the file  so when it is recovered into an image  it will not be an exact representation of the original  However  it is able to compress images very effectively compared to lossless formats  as it discards certain information  A prime example of a lossy compression format is JPEG    Lossless compression formats are suited for illustrations  drawings  text and other material that would not look good when compressed with lossy compression  As the name implies  lossless compression will encode all the information from the original  so when the image is decompressed  it will be an exact representation of the original  As there is no loss of information in lossless compression  it is not able to achieve as high a compression as lossy compression  in most cases  Examples of lossless image compression is PNG and GIF   GIF only allows 8-bit images    TIFF and BMP are both  wrapper  formats  as the data inside can depend upon the compression technique that is used  It can contain both compressed and uncompressed images   When to use a certain image compression format really depends on what is being compressed    Related question  Ruthlessly compressing large images for the web

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Generally these are either   Lossless compression Lossless compression algorithms reduce file size without losing image quality  though they are not compressed into as small a file as a lossy compression file  When image quality is valued above file size  lossless algorithms are typically chosen   Lossy compression Lossy compression algorithms take advantage of the inherent limitations of the human eye and discard invisible information  Most lossy compression algorithms allow for variable quality levels  compression  and as these levels are increased  file size is reduced  At the highest compression levels  image deterioration becomes noticeable as  compression artifacting   The images below demonstrate the noticeable artifacting of lossy compression algorithms  select the thumbnail image to view the full size version   Each format is different as described below   JPEG JPEG  Joint Photographic Experts Group  files are  in most cases  a lossy format  the DOS filename extension is JPG  other OS might use JPEG   Nearly every digital camera can save images in the JPEG format  which supports 8 bits per color  red  green  blue  for a 24-bit total  producing relatively small files  When not too great  the compression does not noticeably detract from the image s quality  but JPEG files suffer generational degradation when repeatedly edited and saved  Photographic images may be better stored in a lossless non-JPEG format if they will be re-edited  or if small  artifacts   blemishes caused by the JPEG s compression algorithm  are unacceptable  The JPEG format also is used as the image compression algorithm in many Adobe PDF files   TIFF The TIFF  Tagged Image File Format  is a flexible format that normally saves 8 bits or 16 bits per color  red  green  blue  for 24-bit and 48-bit totals  respectively  using either the TIFF or the TIF filenames  The TIFF s flexibility is both blessing and curse  because no single reader reads every type of TIFF file  TIFFs are lossy and lossless  some offer relatively good lossless compression for bi-level  black amp white  images  Some digital cameras can save in TIFF format  using the LZW compression algorithm for lossless storage  The TIFF image format is not widely supported by web browsers  TIFF remains widely accepted as a photograph file standard in the printing business  The TIFF can handle device-specific colour spaces  such as the CMYK defined by a particular set of printing press inks   PNG The PNG  Portable Network Graphics  file format was created as the free  open-source successor to the GIF  The PNG file format supports truecolor  16 million colours  while the GIF supports only 256 colours  The PNG file excels when the image has large  uniformly coloured areas  The lossless PNG format is best suited for editing pictures  and the lossy formats  like JPG  are best for the final distribution of photographic images  because JPG files are smaller than PNG files  Many older browsers currently do not support the PNG file format  however  with Internet Explorer 7  all contemporary web browsers fully support the PNG format  The Adam7-interlacing allows an early preview  even when only a small percentage of the image data has been transmitted   GIF GIF  Graphics Interchange Format  is limited to an 8-bit palette  or 256 colors  This makes the GIF format suitable for storing graphics with relatively few colors such as simple diagrams  shapes  logos and cartoon style images  The GIF format supports animation and is still widely used to provide image animation effects  It also uses a lossless compression that is more effective when large areas have a single color  and ineffective for detailed images or dithered images   BMP The BMP file format  Windows bitmap  handles graphics files within the Microsoft Windows OS  Typically  BMP files are uncompressed  hence they are large  the advantage is their simplicity  wide acceptance  and use in Windows programs    Use for Web Pages   Web Applications  The following is a brief summary for these image formats when using them with a web page   application   PNG is great for IE6 and up  will require a small CSS patch to get transparency working well    Great for illustrations and photos  JPG is great for photos online GIF is good for illustrations when you do not wish to move to PNG BMP shouldn t be used online within web pages - wastes bandwidth   Source  Image File Formats

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What coobird and Gerald said   Additionally  JPEG is the file format name  JPG is commonly used abbreviated file extension for this format  as you needed to have a 3-letter file extension for earlier Windows systems  Likewise with TIFF and TIF   Web browsers at the moment only display JPEG  PNG and GIF files - so  those are the ones that can be shown on web pages

User · Answer

Generally these are either   Lossless compression Lossless compression algorithms reduce file size without losing image quality  though they are not compressed into as small a file as a lossy compression file  When image quality is valued above file size  lossless algorithms are typically chosen   Lossy compression Lossy compression algorithms take advantage of the inherent limitations of the human eye and discard invisible information  Most lossy compression algorithms allow for variable quality levels  compression  and as these levels are increased  file size is reduced  At the highest compression levels  image deterioration becomes noticeable as  compression artifacting   The images below demonstrate the noticeable artifacting of lossy compression algorithms  select the thumbnail image to view the full size version   Each format is different as described below   JPEG JPEG  Joint Photographic Experts Group  files are  in most cases  a lossy format  the DOS filename extension is JPG  other OS might use JPEG   Nearly every digital camera can save images in the JPEG format  which supports 8 bits per color  red  green  blue  for a 24-bit total  producing relatively small files  When not too great  the compression does not noticeably detract from the image s quality  but JPEG files suffer generational degradation when repeatedly edited and saved  Photographic images may be better stored in a lossless non-JPEG format if they will be re-edited  or if small  artifacts   blemishes caused by the JPEG s compression algorithm  are unacceptable  The JPEG format also is used as the image compression algorithm in many Adobe PDF files   TIFF The TIFF  Tagged Image File Format  is a flexible format that normally saves 8 bits or 16 bits per color  red  green  blue  for 24-bit and 48-bit totals  respectively  using either the TIFF or the TIF filenames  The TIFF s flexibility is both blessing and curse  because no single reader reads every type of TIFF file  TIFFs are lossy and lossless  some offer relatively good lossless compression for bi-level  black amp white  images  Some digital cameras can save in TIFF format  using the LZW compression algorithm for lossless storage  The TIFF image format is not widely supported by web browsers  TIFF remains widely accepted as a photograph file standard in the printing business  The TIFF can handle device-specific colour spaces  such as the CMYK defined by a particular set of printing press inks   PNG The PNG  Portable Network Graphics  file format was created as the free  open-source successor to the GIF  The PNG file format supports truecolor  16 million colours  while the GIF supports only 256 colours  The PNG file excels when the image has large  uniformly coloured areas  The lossless PNG format is best suited for editing pictures  and the lossy formats  like JPG  are best for the final distribution of photographic images  because JPG files are smaller than PNG files  Many older browsers currently do not support the PNG file format  however  with Internet Explorer 7  all contemporary web browsers fully support the PNG format  The Adam7-interlacing allows an early preview  even when only a small percentage of the image data has been transmitted   GIF GIF  Graphics Interchange Format  is limited to an 8-bit palette  or 256 colors  This makes the GIF format suitable for storing graphics with relatively few colors such as simple diagrams  shapes  logos and cartoon style images  The GIF format supports animation and is still widely used to provide image animation effects  It also uses a lossless compression that is more effective when large areas have a single color  and ineffective for detailed images or dithered images   BMP The BMP file format  Windows bitmap  handles graphics files within the Microsoft Windows OS  Typically  BMP files are uncompressed  hence they are large  the advantage is their simplicity  wide acceptance  and use in Windows programs    Use for Web Pages   Web Applications  The following is a brief summary for these image formats when using them with a web page   application   PNG is great for IE6 and up  will require a small CSS patch to get transparency working well    Great for illustrations and photos  JPG is great for photos online GIF is good for illustrations when you do not wish to move to PNG BMP shouldn t be used online within web pages - wastes bandwidth   Source  Image File Formats

User · Answer

The file extension tells you how the image is saved   Some of those formats just save the bits as they are  some compress the image in different ways  including lossless and lossy methods   The Web can tell you  although I know some of the patient responders will outline them here   The web favors gif  jpg  and png  mostly  JPEG is the same  or very close  to jpg

User · Answer

Yes  They are different file formats  and their file extensions    Wikipedia entries for each of the formats will give you quite a bit of information    JPEG  or JPG  for the file extension  Joint Photographic Experts Group  PNG  Portable Network Graphics  BMP  Bitmap  GIF  Graphics Interchange Format  TIFF  or TIF  for the file extension  Tagged Image File Format    Image formats can be separated into three broad categories    lossy compression  lossless compression  uncompressed    Uncompressed formats take up the most amount of data  but they are exact representations of the image  Bitmap formats such as BMP generally are uncompressed  although there also are compressed BMP files as well   Lossy compression formats are generally suited for photographs  It is not suited for illustrations  drawings and text  as compression artifacts from compressing the image will standout  Lossy compression  as its name implies  does not encode all the information of the file  so when it is recovered into an image  it will not be an exact representation of the original  However  it is able to compress images very effectively compared to lossless formats  as it discards certain information  A prime example of a lossy compression format is JPEG    Lossless compression formats are suited for illustrations  drawings  text and other material that would not look good when compressed with lossy compression  As the name implies  lossless compression will encode all the information from the original  so when the image is decompressed  it will be an exact representation of the original  As there is no loss of information in lossless compression  it is not able to achieve as high a compression as lossy compression  in most cases  Examples of lossless image compression is PNG and GIF   GIF only allows 8-bit images    TIFF and BMP are both  wrapper  formats  as the data inside can depend upon the compression technique that is used  It can contain both compressed and uncompressed images   When to use a certain image compression format really depends on what is being compressed    Related question  Ruthlessly compressing large images for the web

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JPG   Joint Photographic Experts Group  1 JPG images support 16 million colors and are best suited for photographs and complex graphics  2 JPGs do not support transparency   PNG   Portable Network Graphics  1 It s used as an alternative to the GIF file format when the GIF technology was copyrighted and required permission to use   2 PNGs allow for 5 to 25 percent greater compression than GIFs  and with a wider range of colors  PNGs use two-dimensional interlacing  which makes them load twice as fast as GIF images      3 Image that has a lot of colors or requires advanced variable transparency  PNG is the preferred file type   GIF   Graphics Interchange Format  1 Reduces the number of colors in an image to 256   2 GIFs also support transparency   3 GIFs have the unique ability to display a sequence of images  similar to videos  called an animated GIF   4 If the image has few colors and does not require any advanced alpha transparency effect  GIF is the way to go   SVG   Scalable Vector Graphics  1 SVGs are a web standard based on XML that describe both static images and animations in two dimensions   2 SVG allows you to create very high-quality graphics and animations that do not lose detail as their size increases decreases

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Yes  They are different file formats  and their file extensions    Wikipedia entries for each of the formats will give you quite a bit of information    JPEG  or JPG  for the file extension  Joint Photographic Experts Group  PNG  Portable Network Graphics  BMP  Bitmap  GIF  Graphics Interchange Format  TIFF  or TIF  for the file extension  Tagged Image File Format    Image formats can be separated into three broad categories    lossy compression  lossless compression  uncompressed    Uncompressed formats take up the most amount of data  but they are exact representations of the image  Bitmap formats such as BMP generally are uncompressed  although there also are compressed BMP files as well   Lossy compression formats are generally suited for photographs  It is not suited for illustrations  drawings and text  as compression artifacts from compressing the image will standout  Lossy compression  as its name implies  does not encode all the information of the file  so when it is recovered into an image  it will not be an exact representation of the original  However  it is able to compress images very effectively compared to lossless formats  as it discards certain information  A prime example of a lossy compression format is JPEG    Lossless compression formats are suited for illustrations  drawings  text and other material that would not look good when compressed with lossy compression  As the name implies  lossless compression will encode all the information from the original  so when the image is decompressed  it will be an exact representation of the original  As there is no loss of information in lossless compression  it is not able to achieve as high a compression as lossy compression  in most cases  Examples of lossless image compression is PNG and GIF   GIF only allows 8-bit images    TIFF and BMP are both  wrapper  formats  as the data inside can depend upon the compression technique that is used  It can contain both compressed and uncompressed images   When to use a certain image compression format really depends on what is being compressed    Related question  Ruthlessly compressing large images for the web

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You should be aware of a few key factors      First  there are two types of compression  Lossless and Lossy    Lossless means that the image is made smaller  but at no detriment to the quality  Lossy means the image is made  even  smaller  but at a detriment to the quality  If you saved an image in a Lossy format over and over  the image quality would get progressively worse and worse   There are also different colour depths  palettes   Indexed color and Direct color    With Indexed it means that the image can only store a limited number of colours  usually 256  that are chosen by the image author  with Direct it means that you can store many thousands of colours that have not been chosen by the author     BMP - Lossless   Indexed and Direct    This is an old format  It is Lossless  no image data is lost on save  but there s also little to no compression at all  meaning saving as BMP results in VERY large file sizes  It can have palettes of both Indexed and Direct  but that s a small consolation  The file sizes are so unnecessarily large that nobody ever really uses this format   Good for  Nothing really  There isn t anything BMP excels at  or isn t done better by other formats       GIF - Lossless   Indexed only    GIF uses lossless compression  meaning that you can save the image over and over and never lose any data  The file sizes are much smaller than BMP  because good compression is actually used  but it can only store an Indexed palette  This means that there can only be a maximum of 256 different colours in the file  That sounds like quite a small amount  and it is   GIF images can also be animated and have transparency   Good for  Logos  line drawings  and other simple images that need to be small  Only really used for websites       JPEG - Lossy   Direct      JPEGs images were designed to make detailed photographic images as small as possible by removing information that the human eye won t notice  As a result it s a Lossy format  and saving the same file over and over will result in more data being lost over time  It has a palette of thousands of colours and so is great for photographs  but the lossy compression means it s bad for logos and line drawings  Not only will they look fuzzy  but such images will also have a larger file-size compared to GIFs   Good for  Photographs  Also  gradients       PNG-8 - Lossless   Indexed     PNG is a newer format  and PNG-8  the indexed version of PNG  is really a good replacement for GIFs  Sadly  however  it has a few drawbacks  Firstly it cannot support animation like GIF can  well it can  but only Firefox seems to support it  unlike GIF animation which is supported by every browser   Secondly it has some support issues with older browsers like IE6  Thirdly  important software like Photoshop have very poor implementation of the format   Damn you  Adobe   PNG-8 can only store 256 colours  like GIFs   Good for  The main thing that PNG-8 does better than GIFs is having support for Alpha Transparency     Important Note  Photoshop does not support Alpha Transparency for PNG-8 files   Damn you  Photoshop   There are ways to convert Photoshop PNG-24 to PNG-8 files while retaining their transparency  though  One method is PNGQuant  another is to save your files with Fireworks     PNG-24 - Lossless   Direct  PNG-24 is a great format that combines Lossless encoding with Direct color  thousands of colours  just like JPEG   It s very much like BMP in that regard  except that PNG actually compresses images  so it results in much smaller files  Unfortunately PNG-24 files will still be much bigger than JPEGs  GIFs and PNG-8s  so you still need to consider if you really want to use one   Even though PNG-24s allow thousands of colours while having compression  they are not intended to replace JPEG images  A photograph saved as a PNG-24 will likely be at least 5 times larger than a equivalent JPEG image  which very little improvement in visible quality   Of course  this may be a desirable outcome if you re not concerned about filesize  and want to get the best quality image you can    Just like PNG-8  PNG-24 supports alpha-transparency  too   I hope that helps

User · Answer

The file extension tells you how the image is saved   Some of those formats just save the bits as they are  some compress the image in different ways  including lossless and lossy methods   The Web can tell you  although I know some of the patient responders will outline them here   The web favors gif  jpg  and png  mostly  JPEG is the same  or very close  to jpg

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The named ones are all raster graphics  but beside that don t forget the more and more important vectorgraphics  There are compressed and uncompressed types  in a more or less way   but they re all lossless  Most important are    SVG   SVGZ  EPS EMF    WMF

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Since others have covered the differences  I ll hit the uses   TIFF is usually used by scanners   It makes huge files and is not really used in applications   BMP is uncompressed and also makes huge files   It is also not really used in applications   GIF used to be all over the web but has fallen out of favor since it only supports a limited number of colors and is patented   JPG JPEG is mainly used for anything that is photo quality  though not for text   The lossy compression used tends to mar sharp lines   PNG isn t as small as JPEG but is lossless so it s good for images with sharp lines   It s in common use on the web now   Personally  I usually use PNG everywhere I can   It s a good compromise between JPG and GIF

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Generally these are either   Lossless compression Lossless compression algorithms reduce file size without losing image quality  though they are not compressed into as small a file as a lossy compression file  When image quality is valued above file size  lossless algorithms are typically chosen   Lossy compression Lossy compression algorithms take advantage of the inherent limitations of the human eye and discard invisible information  Most lossy compression algorithms allow for variable quality levels  compression  and as these levels are increased  file size is reduced  At the highest compression levels  image deterioration becomes noticeable as  compression artifacting   The images below demonstrate the noticeable artifacting of lossy compression algorithms  select the thumbnail image to view the full size version   Each format is different as described below   JPEG JPEG  Joint Photographic Experts Group  files are  in most cases  a lossy format  the DOS filename extension is JPG  other OS might use JPEG   Nearly every digital camera can save images in the JPEG format  which supports 8 bits per color  red  green  blue  for a 24-bit total  producing relatively small files  When not too great  the compression does not noticeably detract from the image s quality  but JPEG files suffer generational degradation when repeatedly edited and saved  Photographic images may be better stored in a lossless non-JPEG format if they will be re-edited  or if small  artifacts   blemishes caused by the JPEG s compression algorithm  are unacceptable  The JPEG format also is used as the image compression algorithm in many Adobe PDF files   TIFF The TIFF  Tagged Image File Format  is a flexible format that normally saves 8 bits or 16 bits per color  red  green  blue  for 24-bit and 48-bit totals  respectively  using either the TIFF or the TIF filenames  The TIFF s flexibility is both blessing and curse  because no single reader reads every type of TIFF file  TIFFs are lossy and lossless  some offer relatively good lossless compression for bi-level  black amp white  images  Some digital cameras can save in TIFF format  using the LZW compression algorithm for lossless storage  The TIFF image format is not widely supported by web browsers  TIFF remains widely accepted as a photograph file standard in the printing business  The TIFF can handle device-specific colour spaces  such as the CMYK defined by a particular set of printing press inks   PNG The PNG  Portable Network Graphics  file format was created as the free  open-source successor to the GIF  The PNG file format supports truecolor  16 million colours  while the GIF supports only 256 colours  The PNG file excels when the image has large  uniformly coloured areas  The lossless PNG format is best suited for editing pictures  and the lossy formats  like JPG  are best for the final distribution of photographic images  because JPG files are smaller than PNG files  Many older browsers currently do not support the PNG file format  however  with Internet Explorer 7  all contemporary web browsers fully support the PNG format  The Adam7-interlacing allows an early preview  even when only a small percentage of the image data has been transmitted   GIF GIF  Graphics Interchange Format  is limited to an 8-bit palette  or 256 colors  This makes the GIF format suitable for storing graphics with relatively few colors such as simple diagrams  shapes  logos and cartoon style images  The GIF format supports animation and is still widely used to provide image animation effects  It also uses a lossless compression that is more effective when large areas have a single color  and ineffective for detailed images or dithered images   BMP The BMP file format  Windows bitmap  handles graphics files within the Microsoft Windows OS  Typically  BMP files are uncompressed  hence they are large  the advantage is their simplicity  wide acceptance  and use in Windows programs    Use for Web Pages   Web Applications  The following is a brief summary for these image formats when using them with a web page   application   PNG is great for IE6 and up  will require a small CSS patch to get transparency working well    Great for illustrations and photos  JPG is great for photos online GIF is good for illustrations when you do not wish to move to PNG BMP shouldn t be used online within web pages - wastes bandwidth   Source  Image File Formats

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The file extension tells you how the image is saved   Some of those formats just save the bits as they are  some compress the image in different ways  including lossless and lossy methods   The Web can tell you  although I know some of the patient responders will outline them here   The web favors gif  jpg  and png  mostly  JPEG is the same  or very close  to jpg

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For the specified difference and usage between the varies of image formats have a good discussion above already    However  I want to add something for the overall process of capturing a picture and storing them    The capturing process  Or you can say the construct process as we can draw or make pictures with computers now   If you take a photograph with a camera  you are already using lots of sensors CCD or CMOS  and algorithms Bayer Pattern Filter  Sub-sampling and quantization  etc   Also there are stuff like Pixel Format and Color Space  After you got the basic pixel information  there must be a way for storing them   The basic image file structure  For storing the pixels info a file  we need a convention and related algorithms  For saving space  there are compression  but basically problem is encoding the pixels to bytes and decoding the bytes to pixels for display   A typical image file may be consisted by several parts  basically two meta data or file header and pixel data section  The meta data tells about the image itself  maybe height and width  file format  etc  And the pixel data section is the real section who deals with the real picture   Storing and Displaying  As we said earlier  files are stored in hard disk and are in bytes bits  So image files have no priority but also bytes stream actually  For displaying  maybe we should get something to know how monitor works  Typical PC monitors use RGB model for displaying   Hope this helps -

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The named ones are all raster graphics  but beside that don t forget the more and more important vectorgraphics  There are compressed and uncompressed types  in a more or less way   but they re all lossless  Most important are    SVG   SVGZ  EPS EMF    WMF

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These names refers to different ways to encode pixel image data  JPG and JPEG are the same thing  and TIFF may just enclose a jpeg with some additional metadata     These image formats may use different compression algorithms  different color representations  different capability in carrying additional data other than the image itself  and so on   For web applications  I d say jpeg or gif is good enough  Jpeg is used more often due to its higher compression ratio  and gif is typically used for light weight animation where a flash  or something similar  is an over kill  or places where transparent background is desired  PNG can be used too  but I don t have much experience with that  BMP and TIFF probably are not good candidates for web applications

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For the specified difference and usage between the varies of image formats have a good discussion above already    However  I want to add something for the overall process of capturing a picture and storing them    The capturing process  Or you can say the construct process as we can draw or make pictures with computers now   If you take a photograph with a camera  you are already using lots of sensors CCD or CMOS  and algorithms Bayer Pattern Filter  Sub-sampling and quantization  etc   Also there are stuff like Pixel Format and Color Space  After you got the basic pixel information  there must be a way for storing them   The basic image file structure  For storing the pixels info a file  we need a convention and related algorithms  For saving space  there are compression  but basically problem is encoding the pixels to bytes and decoding the bytes to pixels for display   A typical image file may be consisted by several parts  basically two meta data or file header and pixel data section  The meta data tells about the image itself  maybe height and width  file format  etc  And the pixel data section is the real section who deals with the real picture   Storing and Displaying  As we said earlier  files are stored in hard disk and are in bytes bits  So image files have no priority but also bytes stream actually  For displaying  maybe we should get something to know how monitor works  Typical PC monitors use RGB model for displaying   Hope this helps -

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What coobird and Gerald said   Additionally  JPEG is the file format name  JPG is commonly used abbreviated file extension for this format  as you needed to have a 3-letter file extension for earlier Windows systems  Likewise with TIFF and TIF   Web browsers at the moment only display JPEG  PNG and GIF files - so  those are the ones that can be shown on web pages

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The named ones are all raster graphics  but beside that don t forget the more and more important vectorgraphics  There are compressed and uncompressed types  in a more or less way   but they re all lossless  Most important are    SVG   SVGZ  EPS EMF    WMF

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Since others have covered the differences  I ll hit the uses   TIFF is usually used by scanners   It makes huge files and is not really used in applications   BMP is uncompressed and also makes huge files   It is also not really used in applications   GIF used to be all over the web but has fallen out of favor since it only supports a limited number of colors and is patented   JPG JPEG is mainly used for anything that is photo quality  though not for text   The lossy compression used tends to mar sharp lines   PNG isn t as small as JPEG but is lossless so it s good for images with sharp lines   It s in common use on the web now   Personally  I usually use PNG everywhere I can   It s a good compromise between JPG and GIF

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PNG supports alphachannel transparency   TIFF can have extended options I e  Geo referencing for GIS applications   I recommend only ever using JPEG for photographs  never for images like clip art  logos  text  diagrams  line art   Favor PNG

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What coobird and Gerald said   Additionally  JPEG is the file format name  JPG is commonly used abbreviated file extension for this format  as you needed to have a 3-letter file extension for earlier Windows systems  Likewise with TIFF and TIF   Web browsers at the moment only display JPEG  PNG and GIF files - so  those are the ones that can be shown on web pages

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JPG   Joint Photographic Experts Group  1 JPG images support 16 million colors and are best suited for photographs and complex graphics  2 JPGs do not support transparency   PNG   Portable Network Graphics  1 It s used as an alternative to the GIF file format when the GIF technology was copyrighted and required permission to use   2 PNGs allow for 5 to 25 percent greater compression than GIFs  and with a wider range of colors  PNGs use two-dimensional interlacing  which makes them load twice as fast as GIF images      3 Image that has a lot of colors or requires advanced variable transparency  PNG is the preferred file type   GIF   Graphics Interchange Format  1 Reduces the number of colors in an image to 256   2 GIFs also support transparency   3 GIFs have the unique ability to display a sequence of images  similar to videos  called an animated GIF   4 If the image has few colors and does not require any advanced alpha transparency effect  GIF is the way to go   SVG   Scalable Vector Graphics  1 SVGs are a web standard based on XML that describe both static images and animations in two dimensions   2 SVG allows you to create very high-quality graphics and animations that do not lose detail as their size increases decreases

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Since others have covered the differences  I ll hit the uses   TIFF is usually used by scanners   It makes huge files and is not really used in applications   BMP is uncompressed and also makes huge files   It is also not really used in applications   GIF used to be all over the web but has fallen out of favor since it only supports a limited number of colors and is patented   JPG JPEG is mainly used for anything that is photo quality  though not for text   The lossy compression used tends to mar sharp lines   PNG isn t as small as JPEG but is lossless so it s good for images with sharp lines   It s in common use on the web now   Personally  I usually use PNG everywhere I can   It s a good compromise between JPG and GIF

User · Answer

The named ones are all raster graphics  but beside that don t forget the more and more important vectorgraphics  There are compressed and uncompressed types  in a more or less way   but they re all lossless  Most important are    SVG   SVGZ  EPS EMF    WMF

[image] What is the difference between "JPG" / "JPEG" / "PNG" / "BMP" / "GIF" / "TIFF" Image?

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