GIF and JPEG image

[Garith]

Which is better? What is the difference of GIF image and JPEG image?

[c00lryguy]

Gif is more web page compatible, also gif has transparency.

[The Brown Cow]

JPEG is smaller when there are a lot of colors. GIF is smaller when there are few colors.

JPEGs have a very distinct smudgy look when they're highly compressed.

GIFs get an alpha (transparency) channel, which is quite useful in web design. JPEGs don't get one.

[Galactus]

To put it shortly, jpg is better for photographic type images, and gif is better for stuff like small designs or hand drawn pictures. Smaller images are usually gif, as making them jpgs would possibly have undesirable outcomes like larger than needed file sizes and minute loss in compression.

So if you're making something small, or that doesn't really require insane attention to detail, go with gif. If you're thinking about them as making an avatar or signature for a forum, definitely choose gif.

Use jpg for larger images with detail or images of photographic quality. This way you won't lose color and lighting and all that good stuff (digital cameras generally store their images as jpgs because of this).

[Knilt]

Also..
GIFs can make animations (but that's optional, of course). JPEGs will always be still images.
GIFs can display a maximum of 256 colors. I don't know how many colors JPEGs can support.

:wink:

[JoeyG]

GIF compression forces the imge into 255 colors and an optional transparency.

JPG changes lines of pixels that are similar to the same, and then encodes them as a color and the number of pixels.

[noobpwner1]

jpeg have about 1.6 million different colors

[DarkReality]

However, the human eye can't distinguish 1.6 million colors. I know we can see more than 255, but the quality loss from gif to jpg is virtually invisible.

[JoeyG]

Unless you use an incredibly crappy JPEG compressor *points at mspaint*.

[Liokae]

Bah. I just use PNG for everything. :)

[JoeyG]

Same here. I upload to imageshack, and all my images work fine.

[Spike Spiegal]

PNG is an excellent but rarely useable on the net format it provides bitmap quality but HIGH compression.

[JoeyG]

For small pics (my avatar, sig, everything I added at GEP), PNG works great!

[DarkReality]

If you like annoying visitors with loading times, PNG files work just fine for larger images :-D

[Bodadem]

And who of us can honestly say we want people to visit our sites more than once?

[Doug05257]

Not me.... :)

[Bodadem]

Rhetorical question.

[Doug05257]

I know, i'm joking!

[Bodadem]

Doesn't change the fact that it's spam. :D