As image technology keeps improving, we’re inevitably going to end up with multiple file types to store these images. You have probably looked at the .jpg or the .png at the end of your file names and thought to yourself, “I wonder what that means?” In this article, I’ll be breaking down the three most common types of image files: JPEGs, PNGs, and GIFs.
What is a JPEG
JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Export Group. This file type is the industry standard for photographers because it compresses images to a manageable size without a drastic reduction in quality. Because the image can be compressed so much, it’s the most common file type for most images you’ll see online. One of JPEG’s great features is that while you can notice the reduction in quality on close inspection, most people who are simply looking at an image won’t even realize that it was compressed.
What is a PNG
PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics. This file type is the friend of digital artists and internet graphics because of its ability to have a transparent background (that little checkered pattern you see behind pictures). This means you don’t have to painstakingly remove the background of every image you use; just find one with a transparent background, and the background removes itself. Another reason this file type is so popular with graphic designers is its high quality; unlike JPEGs, PNGs do not automatically compress your file, meaning the image has a much higher quality, which is especially important for digital art and graphic design. However, this does come with a side effect; the file is much larger.
What is a GIF
GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. The GIF is a mostly archaic file type, really only seeing use in those dancing cat memes. GIF is an 8-bit color file, which means that it only has 256 colors available to use. While GIFs do not lose as much quality as JPEGs, having the color palette limited to 256 colors means that, when saving images as GIFs, the conversion to 8-bit color can often distort the colors in the image, which can either turn out disastrously or, if you’re specifically going for that 8-bit color effect, wonderfully.
JPEG vs. PNG vs. GIF – when should you use each file type?
You’ll want to use one file type over another in different situations. In photography, JPEG is king, as PNGs take up far too much space, and the higher quality of a PNG simply doesn’t outweigh the cost in memory space for most photographers. JPEGs are also suitable for general image use as they’re small, meaning they can be easily sent and downloaded.
However, if you’re a digital artist, using the image for graphics or a logo, or just generally want the image to be as high quality as possible, then PNGs are the way to go. While the file size will be larger, the difference in quality between JPEGs and PNGs usually makes it worth it for these groups of people. The higher quality means the edges in the image will be much neater (as opposed to being blurred in JPEGs), making it easy to design and trace with them. Also, the transparent backgrounds mean you won’t have to painstakingly trace around the image in Photoshop to get rid of the background.
And finally, about GIFs, there’s no easy way to say it: GIFs simply aren’t used for storing images anymore. Their usage is really only limited to those little animations and memes you send your friends. However, grayscale images by nature use an 8-bit color palette, meaning that saving them as GIFs is fairly ideal if you want a small file size without the quality loss that comes with JPEGs.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this article has demystified the most common image file types and provided some context on when to use each one. Remember when each one is supposed to be used, and you’ll have no problems with the image types for whatever your project may be. Best of luck!