JPEG

• Named after Joint Photographic Experts Group (committee that wrote the standard)
• Lossy compression--images will degrade if decompressed and recompressed
• Stores 24-bit/pixel (16 million colors)
• Not suitable for diagrams or blue prints--produces smudgy line art
• Does not support transparency
• Should have at least 16-gray levels if used for gray scale
• Can easily provide 20:1 compression of full-color data; can choose quality setting--more compression, less quality
• Can convert JPEGs to GIFs
  
  

  GIF

• Graphics Interchange Format originally developed by Compuserve
• Not lossy--will not loose information in converstion to GIF (slightly sharper)
• Stores 8-bit/pixel (256 or fewer colors
• Best for photos, paintings, complex computer-drawn imagesBest for artwork (buttons, bars, line art, simple cartoons), images with sharp edges, and simple computer drawn images
• Produces large, washed-out photographs
• Supports transparency
• Lossless for gray-scale images of up to 256 levels
• Compression is usually 4:1
• Cannot convert GIFs to JPEGs

TO MOST EFFECTIVELY USE JPEG, EDIT IMAGE IN TIFF OR PNG AND CONVERT TO JPEG WHEN FINISHED.

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