I only read a few of the first posts before I decided to post this message. After a few "its old, crappy, and only supports 256 colors" posts, and "just use a JPEG", I should chime in.
I do graphic design full-time for an ISP, and also contract work out through a marketing company. Here is what I have learned about web graphics in the past few years of web releated work:
1.) JPEG's are only good for photo's or photo realistic work. When saving things such as maps, even with the least amount of compression, the lines still "smear" because of the compression. I always do all of my links and mouseovers with GIF's because the keep the clarity of the image.
2.) GIF's are essentially vector based. For instance, I primarily develop my sites for fixed width because of their layout complexity. When doing so, I usually have to whip out a custom background of some sort. I _always_ make the backgrounds 2500 pixels wide.. so that they don't repeat on most anyone's screen resolution. Even at this size, my backgrounds usually average 2K because I save them as a GIF, and create them carefully. As a JPG.. these things would be huge!
3.) 99% of GIF animations are useless. However, there is the 1% which are nice.. custom done to add a sense of interactivity. Not the annoying clip art stuff.
4.) PNG format? Poor/little support yet. Nuff said.
After pushing pixels for 6 years, GIF's have became a very valuable tool for me. I am not afraid to move on to something else.. but it would certainly be nice if PNG's had the support that GIF's do...
.:- booms -:.
"Our fair share of any market we choose to enter is 100%" - Steve Ballmer, VP of Microsoft
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I only read a few of the first posts before I decided to post this message. After a few "its old, crappy, and only supports 256 colors" posts, and "just use a JPEG", I should chime in.
I do graphic design full-time for an ISP, and also contract work out through a marketing company. Here is what I have learned about web graphics in the past few years of web releated work:
1.) JPEG's are only good for photo's or photo realistic work. When saving things such as maps, even with the least amount of compression, the lines still "smear" because of the compression. I always do all of my links and mouseovers with GIF's because the keep the clarity of the image.
2.) GIF's are essentially vector based. For instance, I primarily develop my sites for fixed width because of their layout complexity. When doing so, I usually have to whip out a custom background of some sort. I _always_ make the backgrounds 2500 pixels wide.. so that they don't repeat on most anyone's screen resolution. Even at this size, my backgrounds usually average 2K because I save them as a GIF, and create them carefully. As a JPG.. these things would be huge!
3.) 99% of GIF animations are useless. However, there is the 1% which are nice.. custom done to add a sense of interactivity. Not the annoying clip art stuff.
4.) PNG format? Poor/little support yet. Nuff said.
After pushing pixels for 6 years, GIF's have became a very valuable tool for me. I am not afraid to move on to something else.. but it would certainly be nice if PNG's had the support that GIF's do...
"Our fair share of any market we choose to enter is 100%"
- Steve Ballmer, VP of Microsoft