| Applying Technology to Teaching |
|
<< back to Tips for Designing Online Learning Environments
Graphic Types
JPEG's, GIF’s, PNG’s… What do they all mean? How do I know what format to use? This chart outlines common file formats and when they should be used. You can start with graphics in your format of choice, or convert files to the format that you want.
| Format |
Where Used |
Characteristics |
Best Choice For |
BMP |
Screen display with Windows (Native Paint format) |
-Very large file size
-are uncompressed |
Not used very often on the web due to its large size |
GIF |
Screen display, especially the Web |
-limited to a colour palette of 256 colours
-good for images with solid colours without gradients
-good for images with few colours
-can set colours to view as transparent
- animated gifs are a type of gif that allow browsers to display simple animations |
Illustrations, logos |
JPEG, JPG |
Screen display, especially the Web |
- works well with photographs, realistic artwork, images with a lot of colour gradiation
- does not work well with lettering, simple cartoons, or black-and-white line drawings
-uses a “lossy” compression format. Each time it is saved, information is lost. Therefore, jpgs should not be continually re-saved as jpegs. |
Photographs or realistic graphics with gradiation of colour on the web |
PNG |
Screen display, especially the Web |
-excellent compression
- better than GIF
-Uses lossless compression, unlike JPG
-supports millions of colours -supports transparency
-is a new file format, but is read by modern browsers |
- Images on the web - both photographs and illustrations
-However, JPG’s is better for compressing photographs |
EPS |
Printing to PostScript printers |
-Vector graphic: can stretch image and it won’t distort when opened in certain programs |
Printing high resolution illustrations, such as logos |
| TIFF, TIF |
Printing to PostScript printers |
-High resolution printing of images
-mostly used for desktop publishing |
|
|
