GIF vs JPEG

Hm, I've bunged this in General Chit Chat because I couldn't think where else to put it, I'm really sorry if that's bad!

Basically today was my first day of being allowed a custom avatar so I figured I'd do a little artwork to celebrate. However, when it came to uploading it transpired that the image would only work as a .gif, not a .jpeg, which seemed unusual. I read the earlier threads about avatars but as I recall JP remedied whatever fault users were experiencing at the time so I assumed this was something to do with my files rather than AntiOnline. But what is the actual difference between .gifs and .jpegs? The irritating thing is that the .gif rendition of my avatar has altered the colours badly, giving it a blotchy look where the colours should be smooth. Is this usual? I never use them so I know NAHthing...

XXX

hmm. I'm not sure, but I know one good thing about gifs is that they can be animated (like my eyeball avatar). Maybe when your saving your jpeg as a gif you can select a quality level (%) like you can in some programs when saving a bitmap as a a jpeg.

Someone else will probably come along with a better answer than that =]

P

Gif = Graphics interchange format

jpeg = Joint photographic Experts group


check out this link


http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/FAQ/standards.html


It will help you. :D

The JPG algorhythm for compressing image files is generally seen as being quite ``lossy`` and not good with big detail, however JPG files are much smaller than GIF files.

The problem is between 256 color gif... and a high color set of jpg..

save ur **** in 256 color jpg (at highest rez) and convert it to gif.. u should be find..

Jpeg is only good on high quality images. Gifs are for web and can have animation.

gifs have a limeted color set,you can use either the 256 color set standard pallete, or whats called an adaptive pallete. looks at the picture that you used and notes all the colors in it, if its less that 256 diferent colors used then great, it saves what those colors are and it comes back the exact same, if not then it looks at the easiest to remove.......etc so this usialy gets you the closest to what your trying to do.......

ok for an avitar, if jpeg is too lossy for you then take a look at ping files (.png) i have a tutorial all about them and comparing them to other photo formats here. you might wanna give that a try.

also, i dont know and probly doubt this but you might wanna rename the jpeg extention to .jpg insted of .jpeg if it is....... just another idea....

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Originally posted here by jethro
The JPG algorhythm for compressing image files is generally seen as being quite ``lossy`` and not good with big detail, however JPG files are much smaller than GIF files.

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WTF are you talking about!?! Not good with big detail!? LOL! JPEG files are much much better than .gif files as far as detail goes. It is a great format because its got good compression and good quality so that you can get a high quality image with a small file size.

hurt-conveyor > "WTF are you talking about"? gifs arent used for detail and photo quality. then again jpegs only use is for images that it dosnt matter if detail gets lost...... like over the internet........ the only reason that jpegs are the photo standard is cause theres no better alternitive for compression. you loose image quality thebetter the compression you get in jpeg. simple fact. and i think that anyone on here that knows anything about computer imaging will back me up on that

Gifs compression goes like this: it defines a pixel and the number of repetitions of that same pixel (consecutivily) on the line. Only pixel changes are saved. This makes gifs non-lossy (ie: no definition of the image is lost). Jpeg uses complex mathematics to describe the image. This allows for better compression on images that have alot of colors like pictures, but some details get lost in the compression (the image isn't exactly the same after the compression. The algo is lossy). You can often see this when you save text on plain background with jpeg: "artifacts" form around the letters.

So gifs are better for images with limited colors and limited complexity (ex: website background graphics, cartoons...)

Jpegs are better for complex images wiht lots of colors (ex: pictures).


Attached are a few samples that illustrate diffrences in size in compression... it's hard to show lossyness without an actuall picture in bmp/gif/jpeg..

Ammo

before I was using .jpg for my avatars but I'm using .gif now because I work on another pictures to create my avatars that are usually in gif and I lose some colors when I save in jpg.

I have also noticed that with the avatar standard size and style, my avatars were smaller in gif than in jpg.

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gifs arent used for detail and photo quality.

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I never said they were

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you loose image quality thebetter the compression you get in jpeg. simple fact. and i think that anyone on here that knows anything about computer imaging will back me up on that

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Well no ****! Its always an inverse proportion when it comes to quality vs. compression.

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jpegs only use is for images that it dosnt matter if detail gets lost...... like over the internet........ the only reason that jpegs are the photo standard is cause theres no better alternitive for compression

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What a crock of ****...Im gonna give ya a few links to some nice art in .jpg format, you be the judge if detail is lost. The reason JPEGs are a photo standard is because its one of the best formats.

http://www.deviantart.com/view.php?id=195985
http://www.deviantart.com/view.php?id=221140
http://www.deviantart.com/view.php?id=233170

Just to name a few that I got out of my DA favs real quick.

**** it, i give up! last time i argue with a 20 post newbie....... cripes, why do i bother trying to be helpful?

hurt-conveyer > JPGs aren't neccesarily always crap-looking. Calm down buddy.

Thanks a lot peoples, all of that is brilliantly informative...BUT! [isn't there always a but?] from what I've read [maybe I'm being really obtuse here?] it seems like, given what my avatar looks like, .gif would be better suited right? Or at least not detrimental. But I found that a) .gif looked worse [but then maybe I'm just prejudiced because I tend to use .jpg?] and b) the .jpg wasn't supported on this site...why? WHY?! Any further ponderings on this one? And I did download that selection ammo, and I checked the wicked art links..and maybe I'm being stupidly fussy, but then I did have another .jpg to experiment with that *did* load on the site, so why is it just this one that won't? When the .gif will? *sob*

XXX

Lady haxor:
What program are you using to save in .gif? MSPaint sucks at it because it only uses the standard 256 color pallet. Use another program like Paint Shop Pro (many others will do the same) that creates a custom 256 color pallet from your image when saving as a gif. If you don't have access to such a paint program, you could always send me the jpeg version I could convert it for you...

Ammo

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Originally posted here by jethro
hurt-conveyer > JPGs aren't neccesarily always crap-looking. Calm down buddy.

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thats exactly what my argument was

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Originally posted here by LoggOff
**** it, i give up! last time i argue with a 20 post newbie....... cripes, why do i bother trying to be helpful?

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1) I am a n00b to the AO forums but not to gfx
2) Thx for that response, obviously you're one who can't admit that you are wrong

Gif is a type of a format only good for animations. Yet it can make nice looking graphics but yet is very degrated looking from the classy JPEG. JPEG in my opinion and in most every one will agree is the best format!

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Originally posted here by DefCon11
Gif is a type of a format only good for animations. Yet it can make nice looking graphics but yet is very degrated looking from the classy JPEG. JPEG in my opinion and in most every one will agree is the best format!

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Thats a statement I can agree with.

f0r the love of God, i think that this thread is dead, dam, how can i unsubscribe from this dam thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

bill > click the unsubscribe link

Uhm... I thought the REAL question was NOT the difference between JPG and GIF formats, but why the site might not accept uploaded .jpg files.

(And for all you people out there, JPG files can be saved with NO compression on them. Most of the good image editing programs will allow you to set the level of compression, from none to tons, with the corresponding level of image blurring and/or color warping.

I don't know. The site SHOULD accept .jpg files, have you made sure that your .jpg file is the right pixel size (under 50x50 I think) and under 15k filesize?

superb, i thought perhaps i was going mad whereby only i could see the *other* version of events [ie the one where the main part of the query was being ignored]; yes the .jpg did meet the specs, i mean it was accepted as an avatar but just came up on the site as a red cross, whereas initially it hadn't been the right standards and the avatar page just refused to accept it until i remedied it. are .gifs smaller at all? because i didn't change anything between file types other than, obviously, the file type. and the site did accept alternative .jpgs that i tested with. it's literally just this one, even though i saved it several times; could it repeatedly corrupt or something? i'm not totally sure what that means so if it ddin't make sense that would be why...!

XXX

I dunno. When using Opera in the past it wouldn't upload anything due to a broken way of using javascript to check the upload file type...

I'm not sure why .jpgs aren't working for you. <shrug> Might add it to the "oops a bug" forum. As for the file sizes, it can vary quite a bit. Personally I find myself using .jpg files for photographic-type images or for images with a great deal of fine color differences. GIFs I use more for when I want to specifically have something animated or transparent.

If you would attach your JPG file to one of your replies, I'm sure serveral of the people here would be willing to play with the image and see if we can figure out why it won't work.

K now there's an idea! But it's then really embarrassing if it's just me who's crap enough to have a problem with it...Still, I'll try attaching it to this one and see if it seems ok to you? Thanks

xxx

Hmm.. I'm getting the red X as well. My nstinct says that the image is probably corrupted, but you say you can view it just fine on your computer? Very weird. AO definitey doesn't like something about that picture. Maybe try zipping it up and attaching it that way.

That's strange yet reassuring...I suspect you are right then, but the image started off as a .psd which was fine but obviously huge, then to .jpg which didn't work, then to .gif which did, but I mean the .gif was taken from the potentially corrupted .jpg, would it still work in that case? If it were corrupted I mean? It's really not worth spending too much time on it, I'm happy with my newly transparent [thanks to Guus] .gif now, I just didn't understand what was with the dodgy .jpg, but that's cool, it's not just my ineptitude...? lol, thankyou for taking the time to try figuring it out!

XXX

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Originally posted here by LoggOff
**** it, i give up! last time i argue with a 20 post newbie....... cripes, why do i bother trying to be helpful?

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Dude, what the ***** is that all about? I'm a proffesional Graphic Designer and I know for certain that, GIF is good for images with not a lot of colors and little complexity of them and JPG is good for hi-res pictures with a lot of colors.

And don't go whinin on the guy like "blah blah newbie blah blah". That's just Lame man. Think dude, that title is there to go with the number of posts that the user posted on AO. It does NOT display the user's experience in any skill/profession. You're just "buggerin off" the discussion.

Just to point it out, that was a LAME post.

Ok, I played with the file a bit and got gimp to read it, then re-save it. Maybe you can get Guus to make this one transparent too. Here's what I came up with:

hey, you did it! And see, this is what confuses me - this IS a much clearer image, I thought I was imagining it or something, but it's really basic blocky colours so doesn't that mean it should look better in a .gif format? That was the impression I got from the replies. But I was getting used to the other one, it looked a bit like an 80s cartoon in terms of quality, hehe! I might change back in a sec until Guus is online again and I can ask him to change it. I think he said they have to be .gifs to change though, so maybe I'll have to do it as a .psd and resave it. Then get you to redeem it again! What did you do to change it?

XXX

I didn't do anything to it really. I just found a graphics editor that would read it in correctly (GIMP) and then resaved it using the settings that GIMP suggested (with the exception of the quality setting. I bumped that up to 100% instead of the 75% the GIMP recommends.

oh ok! well done, good use of initiative...! Hehe. The quality setting is in fact rather super. Why do they always advise rubbish quality? If I made the .gif version higher quality would that get a smoother look or is just all pixelly because that's what .gifs do? and on a scale of 1-10, how offended would you be if I changed it back to the pixelly .gif for the time being?!

XXX

Scale of 1 to 10? Probably a 0. And I don't know why they suggest 75%. I guess they are just trying to get you to make use of the compression abilites that JPEG images have. Here's yet another version for you to choose from. It's not as good as Guus' work, but it is trasparent. As with the previous picture, I won't be offended if you don't use this one either.

No it's beautiful, I'm really impressed! It's a bit of a choppy edit but I actually like that, for some reason it makes the profile look more stylised and kinda oriental, and most importantly it retains the colour and gradient shading that I wanted it to - brilliant!

XXX

Arrg. I don't like the limited options for .gif animation sequences, I can't get it to restore the transparency in each frame correctly. I've attached a sample. I could correct it by making the background nontransparent, but then it looks sorta fugly... I could maybe make a bit of hair sway, but I don't trust myself to animate it so it doesn't look like a monty python sketch :)

It just turns into a smear, rather than a more Alfred Hitchcock-like thingy.

Oops! Never mind. Fixed it. I hope.

Terr, try using GifConstruction Set. I used this back in the win3.11 days, but it lets you modify each animation frame independant.

Heh... I think I remember that, I used it for glowy banners mostly. I fixed my prob anyway.

Here's another attempt. 23kb... still 3k over the limit. :/ Oy vey.

Thanks Terr, they look great! not sure how practical if over the limit but hey! Image is everything, practicality is nothing...so legend has it? I feel special anyway just knowing that that exists, an enhanced version of my artwork - wow! Thank you thank you thank you

XXX