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Image File Formats used on the Internet
Graphics Interchange Format
The GIF was developed by CompuServe in the late 1980s
to address the problems with cross-platform compatibility on the internet.
The GIF is best suited for Illustrations, Banners, Logos etc as it only
has a limited number of colours 256 at maximum.
However, the GIF supports transparencies as some of the colours appear
invisible, Another advantage to the GIF is that it can be animated.
Joint
Photographic Expert Group
As the Internet became more graphic
orientated and the demand for high quality images to be transmitted
across the world.
The Joint photographic expert group was set up to develop ways of compressing
images for the internet. The JPEG offers millions of colours at 24 bits
of colour information available per colour as opposed to the GIF's 8
bit and 256 colours.
The JPEG has variable degrees of compression to suit the bandwidth of
the website or user. A 29k jpeg at 80%quality would take about 4 seconds
to download on 56k modem.
The PNG is relatively new to the web, It offers lossless compression with better picture quality and faster download time for a large file size. the PNG 8 and PNG 24 also support transparencies and feathering. However, on Browsers before versions 4 of Internet Explorer and Netscape 2 a plug-in is required to display the image.
One good thing about the PNG is that it has good cross-platform compatibility and has uniform display on Windows and Macintosh operating systems.
Image File Formats used in Photography and Graphic Design
Raw Image File
Is basically raw data processed by a digital cameras sensor; however, raw data is not universal, as digital camera manufacturers use different raw file formats to process an image, for example Nikon .nef, Canon .cr2, and Olympus .orf
Raw converter software such as Adobe Lightroom, Apple Aperture and Phase One Capture One is required to process white balance, colour balance, RGB colour space, etc and to convert the image to a suitable bitmap file such as JPG or TIFF.
Is a lossless file format widely used in the printing industry, It is a very flexible format, as the image can be saved for PC or Apple Mac platforms with either 16 bit or 8 bit and can be compressed using the LZW compression process.
The TIFF format is widely supported by graphic design software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe In Design and QuarkXPress.
Is the native file format for using in Photoshop, it can store Layers, create Masks, Paths, Alpha channels, Text, and Colour spaces for manipulating images in the industry standard software from Adobe Systems.