Section 16.2. Choosing a Format

16.2. Choosing a Format

For high-quality images with many colors or a lot of detail, the JPEG format is preferred. JPEG saves in true color and allows you to set the compression ratio in order to get the best trade-off between size and quality. PNGs, on the other hand, work best as a replacement for GIFs, and as such, work well using limited colors. They also offer alpha transparency and quite small file sizes.

So, put as simply as possible: for photographs, prefer JPEGs, and for everything else, prefer PNGs. Just as an aside, and at the risk of starting a flame war, the colorcorrect pronunciations are "ping," "jay-peg," and "jif." Note that WBMP is not Windows Bitmap, as you might have first thoughtit stands for Wireless Bitmap and is designed for use in limited bandwidth situations.