What is the difference between JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP and other formats, and why are there so many of them?

TechSpot explained what graphic formats exist and why each of them is needed. Discuss

Most of the photos are stored in JPG format, but there are other popular formats such as GIF or PNG. The author of TechSpot told in detail about their features.

  1. GIF... These are animated web images.This format was created in 1987. It helps to convey emotions and feelings better than just a picture or text. Your best bet is to make a GIF from a series of photos on your smartphone.
  1. Jpeg... The first pictures of this format appeared in 1992year. It can be used to save various photos, but if you need to send an image with text, then PNG is better. In addition, when you reprocess a photo in this format, the picture quality deteriorates.
  1. PNG image. This format compresses the image without lossquality. You need to save your work in it if you are going to make further changes to the photo or want to get a high-quality screenshot. There is also an animated version of this picture – it is saved in APNG format. PNG is usually several times larger in size than GIF and JPEG.
  1. WebP... Ball announced this format in 2010.It was intended to replace the most popular animated and static graphic formats. However, in terms of lossless compression, its advantages over PNG are controversial. At the same time, WebP does a great job with lossy compression. Supports this format Adobe Photoshop, as well as iPhone devices on iOS 14.

  1. AVIF. It was created in 2019.Currently it is supported by Google Chrome, Vimeo, and Mozilla and Netflix are planning to add it to the list of supported ones. One of its important advantages – guessing color changes according to changes in brightness level. Logos and text will look sharper even with strong compression than when saved in WebP.
  1. SVG. This format is used in vector graphics.It was created in 2001 and is used in Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, etc. It must be remembered that such files usually weigh a lot, since vector images are generally “heavier” than raster ones.

Other less popular formats includeimages the author mentions TIFF (or TIF), HEIF (or HEIC), RAW, BMP. Thus, the variety of formats allows you to create and edit photos, pictures, etc., work in special programs, upload works to Internet resources in different quality.