Image Types - Usage & Conversion Importance

Image Types - Usage & Conversion Importance

Definition

An image, digital image, or still image is a binary representation of visual information, such as drawings, pictures, graphs, logos, or individual video frames.

Types of Images

Following are the most commonly used types of images and their uses:

• 

  JPG Example

  JPEG
• PNG
• GIF
• TIFF
• WebP
• BMP
• HEIF
• SVG
• EPS
• PDF
• PSD
• AI

Let's take a look at every type in detail one by one.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Expert Group)

JPEGs might be the most common file type you run across on the web. JPEGs are known for their “lossy” compression, meaning that the quality of the image decreases as the file size decreases.

You can use JPEGs for projects on the web, in Microsoft Office documents, or for projects that require printing at a high resolution.

PNG Example

PNG – Portable Network Graphics

PNGs are amazing for interactive documents such as web pages but are not suitable for print. While PNGs are “lossless,” meaning you can edit them and not lose quality, they are still low resolution.

The reason PNGs are used in most web projects is that you can save your image with more colors on a transparent background. This makes for a much sharper, web-quality image.

GIF – Graphics Interchange Format

GIFs are most common in their animated form. In their more basic form, GIFs are formed from up to 256 colors in the RGB color space. Due to the limited number of colors, the file size is drastically reduced.

This is a common file type for web projects where an image needs to load very quickly, as opposed to one that needs to retain a higher level of quality.

TIFF – Tagged Image File

A TIFF is a large raster file that doesn’t lose quality. This file type is known for using “lossless compression,” meaning the original image data is maintained regardless of how often you might copy, re-save, or compress the original file.

Despite TIFF images’ ability to recover their quality after manipulation, you should avoid using this file type on the web. Since it can take forever to load, it’ll severely impact website performance. TIFF files are also commonly used when saving photographs for print.

GIF Example

WebP

WebP is a modern image format that provides superior lossless and lossy compression for images on the web. Using WebP, webmasters and web developers can create smaller, richer images that make the web faster.

WebP lossless images are 26% smaller in size compared to PNGs. WebP lossy images are 25-34% smaller than comparable JPEG images at an equivalent SSIM quality index.

BMP – Bit Map Image File

Files have extensions. BMP represents Bitmap Image files that are used to store bitmap digital images. These images are independent of the graphics adapter. This independence serves the purpose of opening the file on multiple platforms such as Microsoft Windows and Mac.

HEIF – High-Efficiency Image Format

A HEIF file is a lossy compressed format. It may contain still images, image collections, image bursts, and image sequences. HEIF files also store metadata that describes each image.

It is based on High-Efficiency Video Compression (HEVC), which is also known as H.265. The format was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and became popular in 2017 when Apple announced that they were replacing JPEG files with HEIF files in iOS 11.

TIFF Example

SVG – Scalar Vector Graphics

An SVG file is a file that uses XML-based text format for describing the appearance of an image. The word Scalable refers to the fact that the SVG can be scaled to different sizes without losing any quality. A text-based description of such files makes them independent of resolution. It is one of the most used formats for building a website and printing graphics to achieve scalability.

EPS – Encapsulated PostScript

EPS is a file in vector format that has been designed to produce high-resolution graphics for print.

The EPS extension is more of a universal file type (much like the PDF) that can be used to open vector-based artwork in any design editor.

PDF – Portable Document File

PDFs were invented by Adobe to capture and review rich information from any application, on any computer, with anyone, anywhere. I’d say they’ve been pretty successful so far.

If a designer saves your vector logo in PDF format, you can view it without any design editing software. This is by far the best universal tool for sharing graphics.

SVG Example

PSD – Photoshop Document

PSDs are files that are created and saved in Adobe Photoshop. This type of file contains “layers” that make modifying the image much easier to handle.

AI – Adobe Illustrator Document

AI is, by far, the image format most preferred by designers and the most reliable type of file format for using images in all types of projects from web to print, etc.

When to Use What?

While there is no magic formula to determine which image type is best, there are some guidelines you can follow to make an informed decision.

• First, if the image uses a wide range of colors, do not use the GIF format.
• PNGs or JPGs are best for images with a wide color scheme.
• JPGs are best suited for photographs or images containing photographic elements and fine details.
• PNGs are better suited for images involving text, charts, screenshots, and detailed illustrations.

HEIF Example

Image Conversion Issues

As we know that a large number of image file formats are available for storing graphical data. There are several issues associated with converting from one image format to another, most notably loss of image detail. Users are facing these issues due to a few reasons such as software compatibility, loss due to compression, loss due to format change, and digital raw images issues.

There are lots of software and mobile applications available on the Google Play Store and Apple Store that claim that they will convert images among different formats but most of the applications have errors in the basic functionality too.

We bring the best conversion application available to Google Play Store. We personally checked and used this application and after that, we are telling you its name is “ JPG Converter Image - PNG/JPEG “.

JPG Converter Image - PNG/JPEG - (Android Application)

JPG Converter Image - PNG/JPEG

JPG image converter instantly changes any format picture to JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF, or WEBP format image. JPG pictures are commonly needed by everyone; people often have different formats of pictures like PNG, GIF, WEBP, etc.

JPG image converter facilitates users with its top features which are as follows:

JPEG to JPG: JPG image converter for android can convert one or multiple images at the same time to JPG format.
BMP to JPG: JPEG image tool converts photos from BMP to JPG format pictures.
WebP to JPG: Convert a photo in WebP format to a JPG format picture on a JPEG image converter.
PNG to JPG: PNG to JPG converter helps in converting PNG format photos to JPEG format images.
GIF to JPG: Convert GIF image to JPEG on GIF to JPG image converter app.
Batch Mode: JPG Converter allows you to Select Multiple Pictures from Gallery and Convert them into other picture formats e.g JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, JPEG.
Save & Share: JPEG converter helps users to easily save and share Converted JPG, JPEG, WebP, and PNG images.

Most important you can get all these features without losing picture quality and can choose image quality ranging from low, normal, and high quality while converting the image. JPG image converter app has a simple user interface and as well as it is quite efficient and fast for converting images to JPG. 

The cherry on top is its size because you can get all these features in a single application for free and the size of the application is unbelievably small 6MBs only.

So don’t think again and again because this application is testified by our quality check experts and U/E Check Officers. Click here to get this amazing application for your smartphones.