File formats

Bitmap graphics

Bitmap graphics are the most common form of digital graphics as these are created every time you take a picture on your camera.

Bitmap graphics are made up of pixels each one of these are made up of colours. This is one of the main reasons why bitmap graphics can become pix-elated if enlarged or zoomed in on even if the photo was taken with a hd camera.

Bitmap images are quick at opening and loading this is great for web users.

Bitmap images can only display 256 colours and of course this can really affect the quality of the image.

Jpeg

JPEG is a raster file that is the most popular to use on websites as it can still have great quality and be kept at a small file size. Jpeg can be opened up and saved as a file in most programs such as Paint, Photoshop etc. Because jpeg is a bitmap file if enlarged, quality can be lost and therefore become pixelated and blocky.

Gif 

GIF (Graphical interchange format) is a mostly online used file that can animate images. The file sizes tend to be small. This is good for saving storage as this file only uses grey scale and RGB. Therefore the quality of the image will not be as good of a quality compared to other formats such as Jpeg.

Tiff

 A Tiff is a 8 and 24 bit colour file format developed by Adobe that handles monochrome and grey-scale widely used in book publishing.

Different file formats and size

The above image has the same photo in 4 different raster file formats.

As we can see each photo has different qualities and losses. The Jpeg image seems to have the highest quality in terms of tone of skin colour and lighting. This will explain how this is also the biggest file size at 176kbs as the file is holding more data to improve the quality of the image.

The second highest file size at 91.55kbs is the 24 bit png file seems to also be the second best in terms of quality with having slightly less convincing skin and lighting tone. This would not be a huge factor if uploading to a website as the quality is still good.  

The third highest image size at 39.96kbs is the gif file looks better in terms of skin tone than the 24 bit png file. Even though gif files only use RGB and gray-scale. This file would be best used on a website as it seems to the best quality for its low file size out these 4 choices.

The lowest file size at 28.8kbs is the 8 bit png file size has the lowest quality. With fewer colours being used and poor lighting tone.

Vector graphics

Vector graphics are not as popular as bitmap graphics even though they tend to be at a higher quality in most images over bitmap graphics. 

The main reason vector graphics are at a higher quality is because the way they are made. Vector graphics are created using a complicated mathematical coordinated formula.

 This allows the image to be less restricted in terms of quality over the bitmap. Bitmaps are usually restricted to only being a rectangular shape and lose quality and become pixelated once enlarged or zoomed in on. Vector graphics do not lose quality once enlarged and zoomed in on and are not restricted in terms of shape.

With all these advantages comes a larger file size it means that the image can take longer to load up on your screen if used on a website.

SVG

 

A scalable vector graphic
is used to define vector-based graphics for the Web, defines the graphics in XML format,
does not lose any quality if they are zoomed or re-sized and also have the ability to be created and edited with any text editor, be searched, scripted, and compressed and to be scaled