TIFF, GIF & BMP
Common Image File Formats
What are File
Formats?
The structure of a file that tells a program how to display its
contents. It is a standard way in which information is
encoded for storage.
What are Image File Formats?
They bring different ways to overcome the problem of delivering an image
with reduced file size and minimum download time. There are numerous
image file types out there that best suits your image needs.
Tag Image File
Format (TIFF)
Developed in 1986, for scanners, frame grabbers and paint-photo
retouching programs.
It is the most versatile, reliable and widely supported bit-mapped
format.
It included a number of compression schemes and is not tied to any
specific computer display hardware.
An application may have trouble opening a TIFF file created by
another application on a different platform.
TIFF writes large files and uses lossless compression, so one can
always read back without data corruption.
They are widely used for web
graphics, because they are limited to
Graphic 256 colors, can allow for
transparency, and can be animated.
Interchange GIF files are typically small in size
and are very portable. They are best
Format (GIF) for web images & has lossless
compression without the loss of
quality.
BMP is format developed by
Microsoft for Windows. There is
Windows
no compression or information
loss with BMP files which allow
images to have very high quality,
Bitmap but also very large file sizes. Due
to BMP being a proprietary
(BMP) format, it is generally
recommended to use TIFF files.
They are best used for High
quality scans and archival copies.
How are they different?
Flexible and easily extensible file Most common image animation These large uncompressed files
format capable of handling format, are associated with graphic files
device-specific color spaces. Graphics that require few colors, inside the Windows OS.
These files have a transparent for example simplistic diagrams, Format is lossless, meaning it
background. They are perfect for logos, and animations that have cannot be compressed.
company logos. large portions of a single color. Their simplistic structure makes
Their application lies in Extension: .gif them ideal for Windows
Photographic file standard in programs.
print, OCR software packages. Extension: .bmp
Extension: .tif/.tiff