Web Design with HTML and CSS

86

Choosing the best fi le format for your image

Web Design with HTML and CSS Digital Classroom

Choosing the right fi le format

The most popular formats for web images are JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Each one of these

formats has benefi ts and drawbacks, as shown in the following table.

File Formats

FILE

FORMAT LOSSY SUPPORTS ANTI-ALIASINGSUPPORTS TRANSPARENCYSUPPORTS ANIMATIONSSUPPORTS VARYING AMOUNTS OF TRANSPARENCYHAS LIMITED COLORSIS BEST FOR PHOTOSIS BEST FOR SOLID COLORS

JPEG •• •

PNG-8 ••••

PNG-24 ••••••

GIF ••••

Choosing the best fi le format for your image

Throughout this lesson, you will have the opportunity to save images in each of the major

fi le formats: JPEG, PNG, and GIF. You will also see the diff erences between the formats and

when to use each.

Saving images as JPEGs.

The JPEG fi le format helps you keep the fi le size down, but some loss in image quality

occurs when you save the image fi le. Since the JPEG format supports anti-aliasing, we

recommend it for photographic images and illustrations with a lot of gradients; anti-aliasing

is a technique used in computer graphics that helps smooth out the naturally jagged edges of

objects such as text or any area where a transition in tonal values is needed. When saving an

image as a JPEG, you can also choose varying levels of quality.