GIF or JPG?

Here I wish I knew enough to confidently tell you what the difference is really. For the moment, I decide only this way, if it is a photograph, I save the image in the .jpg format.

If it is a graphic image I created from scratch, I save it in the .gif format. Some other reasons to save an image in the .gif format are:

this format allows you to create an image with a transparent background. Imagine a picture drawn on a sheet of acetate.
with some exceptions, the file size is smaller compared to a similar dimension image saved in .jpg format.
perfect for logos, rollover buttons, tile for backgrounds etc.

Some other thing you should know about .gif images - only limited colours (256 or lower) and the more colours saved in the image, the bigger the file size.

There is a whole science on how to save your images into the .gif format which I have not fully grasped yet so I cannot comment more than this. What I usually do is just play around the options at the point of saving it as .gif file and when I am happy at the quality of the image and the file size, it's saved.

There is another format I know of .png; but I have to be honest that I only know of it's existence and nothing more...

Here is something I read recently from an email I received:

"The JPEG format is a public standard, free for anybody to use, but Unisys, the creator of the GIF format, has made it clear that they hold the right to charge anyone who uses GIF images a $5,000 license fee (Wow!). This is enforced selectively at best, but still it's caused a bit of consternation among Web builders, and as a result there's a move toward PNG images instead."




			GIF or JPG? Here I wish I knew enough to confidently tell you what the difference is really. For the moment, I decide only this way, if it is a photograph, I save the image in the .jpg format. If it is a graphic image I created from scratch, I save it in the .gif format. Some other reasons to save an image in the .gif format are: this format allows you to create an image with a transparent background. Imagine a picture drawn on a sheet of acetate. with some exceptions, the file size is smaller compared to a similar dimension image saved in .jpg format. perfect for logos, rollover buttons, tile for backgrounds etc. Some other thing you should know about .gif images - only limited colours (256 or lower) and the more colours saved in the image, the bigger the file size. There is a whole science on how to save your images into the .gif format which I have not fully grasped yet so I cannot comment more than this. What I usually do is just play around the options at the point of saving it as .gif file and when I am happy at the quality of the image and the file size, it's saved. There is another format I know of .png; but I have to be honest that I only know of it's existence and nothing more... Here is something I read recently from an email I received: "The JPEG format is a public standard, free for anybody to use, but Unisys, the creator of the GIF format, has made it clear that they hold the right to charge anyone who uses GIF images a $5,000 license fee (Wow!). This is enforced selectively at best, but still it's caused a bit of consternation among Web builders, and as a result there's a move toward PNG images instead."