"For the Web, PNG really has three main advantages over GIF: alpha channels (variable transparency), gamma correction (cross-platform control of image brightness), and two-dimensional interlacing (a method of progressive display). PNG also compresses better than GIF in almost every case, but the difference is generally only around 5% to 25%, not a large enough factor to encourage folks to switch on that basis alone. One GIF feature that PNG does not try to reproduce is multiple-image support, especially animations; PNG was and is intended to be a
PNG is an image format which has been supported since 1997 by browsers from Netscape and Microsoft. It is a standard supported by the World Wide Web Consortium. It is a lossless format like GIF, but compresses the picture better and supports full color imagery (up to 48 bits per pixel!). The picture below is an RP-133 conformant SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) video test pattern. If you click on it, you will be brought to a small gallery of great png images.
I decided to add this to my web page because my normal image
The PNG format provides a portable, legally unencumbered, well-compressed, well-specified standard for lossless bitmapped image files.
Although the initial motivation for developing PNG was to replace GIF, the design provides some useful new features not available in GIF, with minimal cost to developers.
GIF features retained in PNG include:
* Indexed-color images of up to 256 colors.
* Streamability: files can be read and written serially, thus allowing the file format to be used as a communications protocol for on-the-fly generation and
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