File Formats for the web - gif and jpeg

These two file formats are your most important tool for the web and a designer needs to know which to use and when.

GIF:

The function of a gif – Gif is the most popular format for the web. It is able to compress large areas of colour and it will be the most important to use for all your graphics except photographs. Gif can utilise a maximum of 256 colours, but for the purpose of reducing your file size, you need to limit you colour palette. What a gif does is makes your image as small as possible without losing any of its important components of data. Gif should be your primary file format when using a restricted colour palette, so you can use it for logos, line drawings and icons. It will not unfortunately give enough credit to a well taken photo.

JPEG:

The function of a jpeg – due its extensive range to support well over the 256 colours of a gif. It should primarily be used for photography work. What is very important to note though is that because of the formatting in a jpeg, some jargon, I don’t think I can re-explain adequitly to anyone reading this, is that once you save your work as a jpeg, you cannot get your original back as it will have now been altered indefinitely – so please make sure to always have an original saved. So, jpeg’s are to be used for images that will lose quality if reduced to anything less than 256 colours.