Pictures and Images

There are several common formats for images. On the Windows operating system the image file type can be determined from the file name extension:

filename.'''ext'''

Here '''ext''' would be the file extension (or secondary file name).

== File Formats ==
There are several common file formats for images.

== GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) ==

A compressed picture format suited to drawing graphics rather than photographs. It creates very small files. It limits the number of colours (to 256) used for the picture and so photographs tend to become blotchy.

GIF supports animation natively.

The small file size and animation capability makes this a common choice for the Internet.

== JPEG or JPG (Joint Picture Experts Group) ==

A compressed picture format where you can trade quality for increased compression. You can decide on a scale 1-255 how much compression takes place, but the more compression, the lower the quality of the image.

== PNG (Portable Network Graphics) ==

A compressed picture format that is growing in popularity and support. It supports more colours than gif and supports transparency. Older browsers still have some problems with png.

== BMP (Bit Map - Windows) ==

An uncompressed bit map file format used on Windows systems. Files tend to be large.