Some of the most common image formats you will encounter when working with digital images are JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, and TIFF. Before getting into each of these, it’s important to get a little briefing on lossy vs. lossless compression. Lossy compression, such as JPEG, decreases the size of the image by discarding image detail, while lossless formats, such as BMP, PNG or GIF, compress the image without discarding any detail, but are larger in size. Here we go:

JPEG stands for Joint Picture Experts Group, and is commonly used for digital photography. One reason why JPEG is one of the most common image formats used today is that lossy compression provides the capability to select a level of compression, but beware, by selecting more compression you will start to see more image details disappear.

BMP stands for Bitmap, which is a lossless uncompressed format. These files tend to be larger in size due to their uncompressed nature. Although many people still use them, they will be encountered throughout the internet.

GIF is a lossless image format and stands for Graphics Interchange Format. You’ll see that GIF image formats are commonly used for animations or icons as it is limited to a maximum of 256 colors. This support for a very low color depth makes it unsuitable for photographs.

PNG, or Portable Network Graphics, was created after GIF, kind of as an upgrade that offers the same features, but supports true color (24 Bit). It really never got much traction outside of PowerPoint as JPEG continues to be more accepted. Many applications still do not support the PNG format which is probably one of the main reasons it never took off, but you will still see this file format used across the internet.

TIFF stands for Tagged Imaged File Format and it also uses lossless compression. The TIFF format is generally used for professional photography, publishing, and high quality imagery. These file types tend to be extremely large in size and are not commonly used on the web.

The great news is that digital watermarking supports all of these file formats and more. You can also download the free Digimarc Reader for Images to help you identify watermarked images while surfing on the web, or use it to scan your local computer. Get it now by clicking HERE.