PNG or GIF

PNG or GIF

This article, invites you to explore the two main choices of format images that can be used in the Web to illustrate a simple graphic a scheme or logo.

GIF 

Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) was developed in 1980 and more widespread use. GIF format is a compress / reduce the file size using the algorithm called LZW. The value of more than GIF is a very broad support and appears as the default choice for simple images on the web.

Compared with others (such as PNG) GIF is technically not so superior, but during this year are on the Web, supporting appears and the development of PNG, this is certainly a safe choice until today. One of the problems that states surrounding the GIF format is LZW algorithm is patent protected by U.S. company Unisys. LZW Unisys Company expired in USA, June, 20th 2003. LZW patent expired in Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Britain and Japan.
 

PNG 

PNG (Portable Network Graphics) was developed in 1995 and became a W3C recommendation in 1996, and has grown to almost all Web browsers to the year 1998. PNG (Portable Network Graphics), a file format for the lossless, photoable, reduced image storage.PNG provide patent-free substitute for GIF and can also replace many uses of TIFF. Indexed-color support, grayscale, TrueColor, plus an optional alpha channel.
 

For the Web, PNG has three advantages than GIF:

• alpha channels (variable transparency)
• cross-platform gamma correction (control for sharpness / brightness images)
• color correction and two-dimension interlacing (method of progressive display).
• PNG also compresses better than GIF every case (5% to 25% in case type)