jpg, gif, bmp...

[tapestrybabe]

i know there are different
formats for like photos...
but i really dont know
what the difference is between...
like a jpg, gif, bmp...

please share your knowledge with me...
cuz i'd like to know...

[kitty]

a .jpg has 16 million colours in the colour palatte and is one of the standard web-based images. however, it has a small file size which makes good for web transferring, but accomplishes this through a file compression, which can cause ickiness in the quality if you want to muck around with the image later. still, most of my images online are stored in .jpg format.

a .gif has a fixed colour palatte that you can alter in a shop, basically the colours in the image get saved into a palette of 256 colours, but isn't saved with the 16 million that are saved for a .jpg. It allows for usually crisper images but because there isn't a file compression, the files are usually bigger. .gifs also allow you to have animated images, like your flat avatar -- .jpgs can't do that. .gifs are best for pictures that have fewer colours in the image (so not like high res digital photos) and for images that are smaller since file size can be a big issue. they also have the ability to save a transparent colour, also like in your flag avatar.

.bmps are the windows standard file extension. they also have a 16 million colour palette like .jpgs but they don't have file compression. they also don't always show up so well on the web in all browsers (or at least that's my experience). they have big file sizes but better high resolution quality. they're good for archiving pictures on your hard drive but really aren't used for web-based stuff.

hope that answers your question?