Glossary

GIF

See Graphics Interchange Format

Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)

A widely supported file type used to store images and graphics. GIF files are widely used with in web pages as they tend to be small and so download quickly. GIF files also support transparency. GIF files don't offer very high quality representation of photos and are usually only used for graphics.

Joint Motion-Picture Expert Group (JPEG/JPG)

JPEG are a very common file format used to store photographic images. JPEGs are able to compressed the photographic data in a way that seems have offer very good quality. Although it does lose information and lowers the quality of the image, this isn't usually noticeable. JPEG files are very widely supported.

JPEG

See Joint Motion-Picture Experts Group

Portable Network Graphics (PNG)

A relatively new file format, PNGs are only just becoming widely supported. Internet Explorer 6 cannot always work correctly with this file type, although later versions do offer full support to display these files. PNG files have advanced features that allow them to store vector as well as raster data for an image. Vector PNGs are scalable, allowing them to be resized with out any effect on quality. PNGs also offer alpha channel transparency, meaning that they can blend semi-transparent colour regions of the image with background colours, to create a more seamless effect.