What Is The Appropriate Image Format For Your Website?

Images are an important part of web content. They are used to tell stories, communicate a message and create an emotional connection with your visitors. It is common for them to be used in any web project since human beings can assimilate images better than text.

Although images are an important resource on all websites, you should be careful when using them as it could slow down your website. This can often be done by not optimizing the image in question for the web or because the appropriate format for it has not been chosen.

In this article, we mention the different types of most used formats on the web and their common uses, so that you can properly choose the most appropriate format.

JPEG

JPEG or JPG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. As the name implies, it is an ideal format for photographs. Next, we explore the reasons for the popularity of this format:

It can display a wide variety of colors, which makes it an ideal format for photographs because of the number of tones that can be seen in a single photo.

All devices that have internet access are compatible with the JPEG format.

Its type of compression is “lossy” so that quality is lost when exporting a file as JPEG. But a smaller file is also generated that can be added to a website.

One of the biggest disadvantages of JPEG files is that it does not support transparency, so if you want to make a design with images in transparency, JPEG is not the right format. If a background color is not captured, it will automatically add a white background in the exported JPEG. So if you know you need images with transparency, you must choose other options.

GIF

GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. It is an 8-bit format that only has a maximum of 256 colors. This feature makes this format not appropriate for photographs or images that have a wide variety of colors. Despite its limitations, GIF is a popular format on the web and we mention some reasons:

Supports transparencies

Supports animations. That is, banners, emoticons, etc. could be created.

Due to the color limit, small files are generated

GIF is not a new format, but it has gained popularity on the web thanks to its use in social networks, particularly for repetitive animations.

PNG

PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics and was created as an alternative to the GIF format since it has many similarities and some additional features, which we detail below:

It has export modes in 8 and 24 bits, which implies a great variety of colors.

Supports transparencies

The biggest disadvantage of this format is usually to generate files of greater weight because it has compression of type “lossless”, like the GIF format, which implies that quality is maintained. Despite having some similarities with the GIF format, it does not support animations. If you need an animation you must use the GIF format.

SVG

SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics and is a vector format that has become popular in recent years thanks to the development of browser compatibility for this format. SVG is an excellent option for graphics today because since it works based on vectors, its dimensions can be changed without losing its sharpness. Here are some advantages of this format:

It usually generates small files.

You can include it as a code in your HTML markup to decrease the number of HTTP requests.

You can animate them in whole or in part thanks to CSS and JavaScript.

The SVG code can be modified or customized using CSS.

The SVG format is currently used for logos, maps, icons, etc. and in general for simple graphics so that small files can be generated. If the SVG is too complex, the weight of the file will be greater and this is an undesirable feature on the web.

WebP

WebP is a more recent format than those mentioned previously as it emerged in 2010. It was specifically developed to be used on the web. Although currently not used much on the web, it has great advantages, which we will detail below:

It has both lossy and lossless compression, but the procedure has been optimized, so that lighter images are generated compared to other formats such as PNG or JPEG.

Supports transparencies

As you can see, this format developed by Google combines the advantages of JPEG and PNG, just so that images can be generated with a minimum loss of quality and with an acceptable weight for the web. Currently, although it has several years of existence, this format is not yet supported in certain browsers such as Microsoft Edge or Safari.

In conclusion

As you have seen, each popular image format on the web has several advantages and disadvantages. Even the recent WebP that combines the strengths of JPEG and PNG does not support animations and presents some compatibility issues in certain browsers.

No format is better than the other without considering the context. Each format has a suitable occasion to be used effectively. You are likely to use various image formats for your website depending on the type of image and result you want to achieve. But it is valuable to know the advantages and disadvantages of each format so you can make a more accurate decision when creating or selecting images for a website.

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