Common Web and Design File Formats
There are so many file types floating around these days and sometimes its hard to know what the best or right file format is for a particular job. By using the right file type, you will avoid disappointment and ensure a spectacular result every time. Below is a list of the most common file types used at Coconut Graphics from day to day.
-
Rastor Images
Software such as Photoshop and Corel Draw generate bitmap images, also known as raster images. These images use a grid of small squares, known as pixels, to represent graphics. Each pixel(dot) in a bitmap or raster image has a specific location and colour value assigned to it. For example, a Monkey represented in a bitmap image is made up of many pixels in the grid, each pixel has a colour, and each pixel is combined to form a mosaic, that when viewed as a whole, can be seen as a monkey. When working with bitmap images, you edit pixels rather than objects or shapes.
Raster images are the most common format of continuous-tone images, including photographs, because they can represent subtle changes of shade and colour. As said earlier, bitmap images are resolution-dependent. This means that they represent a fixed number of pixels, as a result, they can appear jagged and lose detail quickly if they are made bigger or smaller than their original size, on-screen or if they are printed.
-
Vector Artwork
Vector images are graphics that have been created using a drawing application such as Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand , CorelDraw, and many CAD applications. It uses paths to create polygons and lines it then stores information mathematically. Vector art is Resolution Independent, which means that whether you enlarge or shrink the image, the output quality will be as high as you need it to be. This is because all the information stored is relative to itself, if one piece of information changes, the rest is changed accordingly.
-
GIF File Format
Short for Graphic Interchange Format is a file format for storing digital images, commonly used for bullets, icons, and other graphical items on websites. The GIF format is limited to 256 colors, so it\'s not as popular as JPEG for storing digital photos. A single GIF file can combine several frames together for basic animated motion. Gif images also support basic transparency.
-
JPEG File Format
Short for Joint Photographic Experts Group, JPEG is a lossy file format for storing and transferring digital images. JPEG compression relies on the human eye's inability to see minute color changes, removing chunks of data from the original picture file. When creating a JPEG file, different levels of compression can be used, depending on the desired image quality and file size.
-
TIFF File Format
A TIFF is a wrapping file, it makes a package of images and text for ease of transportation. It is used widely by computer scanner programs, digital cameras, designers, photographers and more to save images onto computers. TIFF images are usually higher quality than JPEGs, GIFs, or PNGs.
-
PNG File Format
These days, PNG files are become the go to file format for website designers. It has the image quality of JPEG, and even higher, in many cases its also a smaller file-size, and like GIF, it supports transparency, however with a much higher quality output. It is a superior file-type, but has the unfortunate drawback of not being properly supported by Internet Explorer 6, which will soon be no longer supported.
-
RAW File Format
Many Digital Cameras, mostly DSLR's use RAW as their preffered file type due to its lossless format. Camera manufacturers all use their own licensed version of RAW image files with their own special names. Canon uses CRW or CR2. Nikon uses NEF, while Sony uses ARW and SRF. These are all basically the same file type, but they've been tweaked to only work with their particular company's software. Professionals prefer to save photographs as RAW rather than JPEG files because they are more detailed and allow better editing as they contain more of the raw data contained in the image, most of which is lost when compressed into JPEGs.
-
BMP File Format
BMP files are in most cases have much large file sizes then JPEGs, this is because they are dot-by-dot pictures, a lossless format with very little compression. It is an outdated format - is not really used on the internet, due to the large file size, nor is it used in printing due to the higher quality of tiff and smaller size of JPEG files. Some installed computer programs use BMP such as older games and Microsoft Office.
-
PSD (Photoshop's File Format)
PSD, short for Photoshop Document, is a popular format for the design industry, made exclusively by the Adobe for Photoshop and other Adobe Products. They not only save the images and layers inside them in a lossless format, it also contains information such as the fonts used in the document, colour swatches, effects and other information that makes this file format one of the graphic designers go to file types.