Jpeg vs Gif

[monkeychoo]

I have alway used jpegs on my website, but I constantly notice others using gifs instead. Is there reason for this? Are gifs superior to jpegs?

[Sequin]

Gif's usually have a colour resolution of 256 colours so are fine for artwork. They can also be animated gif's - jpg's are restricted to a single image.

Jpg's are much better for photos as the contain many more colours. If you use them for cartoon type images with large areas of block colours, you get colour fringes and other artifacts near changes from one colour to another.


Each has its own advantages and disadvantages

[KebabMeister]

Gifs are mostly used on websites because they are smaller in size.  This obviously mean that they load much faster than Jpeg images especially for people using dial-up internet.

As mentioned, Gifs go up to a maximum 256 colours whereas Jpegs can go up to 16.7 million colours.  Jpegs use compression to make the image smaller than a BMP (Bitmap) image yet keeping nearly the same quality of a BMP.

[monkeychoo]

So it's JPEGs for photos and gifs for artwork - thanks guys - cleared that up nicely!!

[rjbriggsy]

gifs can also contain transparency

[Chillum]

I'm a png man myself.

[Space]

GIFs are not smaller in size at all.
GIFs don't have any compression.
That is why the are usually used for small and/or animated pictures.