In this article I will show you 3 current graphic formats that Web pages should use, not to mention what the future comes to bring in this regard.



The graphic component of the web sites is very important because it allow us to apply our creativity to design sites as a pleasant task. It is also a tool to show the visitor a graphic piece that in some cases ?could worth as much as a million of words?, but it is also responsible for serious errors in the web design; and in some cases can be a martyrdom for a visitor as the same graphic piece could ?worth a million of seconds? to load if are not used correctly. The basics for using graphic files are simple, just knowledge on graphic formats, even slightly, will help us design sites nicely and fastest.

So let's analyze the 3 graphics formats in more detail:

1- The GIF graphic format.

It is an acronym for the phrase "Graphics Interchange Format".

This is a graphic file format that is commonly used to display images indexed by colour in the Wold Wide Web. This format is used by its high-capacity compression of the information of an image.

It was developed in 1987 (GIF87) CompuServe solution for sharing images across platforms. He was subsequently revised in 1989 generating the new version GIF89a.

The GIF format is limited to a maximum of 256 colours. GIF is a compressed format designed to minimize the time to transfer files through standard telephone lines. Use LZW method to achieve compression ratios of approximately 1.5:1 to 2:1.

It is generally recommended for simple images.

2- The JPG graphic format.

A format with a colour depth of 24 bits, that is permitted to use up to 16.7 million colours with variable compression that may losses of image detail, the compression level can be specified. The JPG image is not allowed to use transparencies.

If you are going to display the image on a web page you can use the method of gradual compression. This option displays the image gradually, while downloading the web browser, using a series of lectures to show increasingly detailed versions of the entire image, until it had downloaded all the data. However, the JPEG images progressive need more RAM for display and not all Web browsers support them. It is commonly used in photographs where there are more than 256 colours.

This format is typically used by digital cameras to store its images.

3- The PNG graphic format.

In response to the problems of GIF format (essentially legal, but also technicians); a project was initiated through the Internet to create a replacement. The result of this project was the PNG format.

The initial mean Portable Network Format (PNG), and is the youngest of these three graphic formats we have here. Precisely this "youth" is the first and greatest flaw: PNG is completely unrecognizable by older browsers.

In terms of its graphics capability is not at all bad: Supports colour depth up to 24 bits (16.7 million colours), uses a system called LZ77 compression without losing quality when you reduce the size of the files , anyway if you reduce the image depth you can reduce further the size of the files.

PNG has a number of characteristics that it really becomes into an attractive one. In fact is a completely free format, so anyone can implement it in their programs or use it freely, in the way you want without paying royalties to anyone.

Although there are a multitude of graphic formats in the market, each one has a number of features that make it better or worse for a particular job; the web designer should focus on the formats targeted to the web. While many browsers recognize different formats, there are only three sufficiently widespread and efficient enough to be used on web pages. These three formats are JPEG, GIF and PNG, so we can conclude that they are the 3 success graphic formats for any Web Site, even yours.