No Bitmap Photos, Please...
Saturday March 15, 2008
A statement on a Web site (totally unrelated to desktop publishing) that was soliciting photographs from readers tickled my funnybone earlier this week. Among the requirements were to convert photos to GIF or JPEG only and do not send bitmap images. Did a doubletake on that one.
After a chuckle or two I decided that what the Web site owner might have meant was either send no BMP images or don't send enlarged, pixelated (bitmappy?) images. Anyway, it got my attention. Of course GIF isn't a great format for photographs either but for posting bitmap images on the Web, GIF and JPEG are the common formats. (Yes, I know about PNG too.) In any event, I'm using that little encounter as an excuse to post a recap of image format basics, of the bitmap variety.
Thank you – this overview has finally helped me understand!