JPEG vs. GIF vs. PNGJPEG vs. GIF vs. PNG

What’s the difference?What’s the difference?

JPEGJPEG

JPEGJPEG

• Stands for “Joint Photographics Expert Group“

• Used to compress photos and complex images

• The information that is lost is mostly what humans can’t see

JPEGJPEG

• Uses small squares of shaded colours called pixels

• Not good for letters, drawings or simple graphics, as there is nothing to get rid of

GIFGIF

GIFGIF

• “Graphics Interchange Format”

• Doesn’t remove any quality when compressing

• Multiple images can be combined to create simple GIF animations

GIFGIF

• Only good for simple graphics, as it only supports 256 colours

• Can also be edited to be transparent, allowing background images/text to show through

Animated GIFsAnimated GIFs

PNGPNG

PNGPNG

• “Portable Network Graphics”

• Upgraded version of GIF, as it can be the same quality but 20-25% smaller

• Doesn’t support animation

SummarySummary

• JPEG: used to compress complex images by creating coloured pixels, but reduces quality

• GIF: used to compress simple images without loss of quality, but only supports 256 colours

• PNG : upgraded version of GIF but doesn’t support animation