Use GIF for:Ī newer file format than GIF and JPEG, the PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is like a marriage between both the GIF and JPEG format thanks to its two variants. Despite this, the the hard g sound is the most commonly used. The creators of GIF have said that they intended it to use the soft g sound of jiff. It is typically said with either a soft g, as in jiff, or a hard g, like you would say great.
The pronunciation of GIF has caused many internet debates. For many years, GIF provided the web’s only transparency option – though PNG and SVG now offer this too. GIF is generally a poor choice for images with wide color variation, however the 256 color limit and lossless compression can help keep file sizes small which is ideal for even the slowest of internet speeds. This color range is lost during the GIF conversion process and this is the key reason not to use GIF for color photos.
While 256 might sound like a lot of crayons to work with, complex photographs typically have many thousands of tones. GIF also provide animation support, contributing to its long success as a format for small animations in various social networking platforms.Įssentially each GIF image contains a preset ‘box of crayons’ and there is no way to truly mix those colors to make new colors. The GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is a type of bitmap, but unlike JPEG or PNG, GIF files are limited to a maximum palette of 256 colors.
