Gif,jpg,eps,or Pdf ?

[NT91]

give me a brief explanation of the difference between a .gif, .jpg, .eps, and .pdf file as it relates to quality of graphic.

Edited August 17, 2009 by NT91

[NT03]

DYOR

RTFM

KUTGW

Edited August 17, 2009 by NT03

[NT91]

Rank the following .gif, .jpg, .eps, and .pdf file as it relates to quality of graphic best to worst.

[UNTFan23]

JPEG

GIF

EPS

PDF

I don't know which is the best format, but in the web world, JPEG and GIF are the preferred formats and PDFs are used for read only documents.

[NT91]

Thanks

[KingDL1]

Rank the following .gif, .jpg, .eps, and .pdf file as it relates to quality of graphic best to worst.

Depends on the use, generally for large format EPS is the best, and PDF can be good if saved well, because PDFs will hold vector imagery as well. Gif and jpg are strictly raster.

For website imagery I use jpg then gif these days, jpgs have a much higher color depth.

[UNTFan23]

Depends on the use, generally for large format EPS is the best, and PDF can be good if saved well, because PDFs will hold vector imagery as well. Gif and jpg are strictly raster.

For website imagery I use jpg then gif these days, jpgs have a much higher color depth.

GIF is good if you are using a small color platelet (256 colors). I think all the buttons on gmg.com are gifs.

JPEGs are good for general pictures. PNGs are really the best but consume a lot of space.

[drex]

Relevance to NT football?

[jperg2]

PNG works well too.

[meangreendork]

Item by item:

.gif - Just don't use this filetype. Ever. It still works, but it's anything from optimal. While you can still get good color depth, it's not as deep as what you can get from a .jpg or .png.

.jpg - These are pretty good. You can get incredible image quality at the right resolutions and still get good quality at lower ones.

.png - These are great for the web. You can use them for print, but the great thing about png files is that they support transparency in just about every web browser without any additional code. That is, unless you use IE7 or IE6, and if you do, you need to get the hell off the internet or get a browser that works, like Firefox or Google Chrome.

.eps - This is actually more effective for vector work than anything else. It will still handle raster-based images nicely, but it'll do it and take up a ton of memory. Use a .jpg when possible or a .tif if need be.

.pdf - This isn't really an image filetype so much. You can still get good image quality out of this, but it's based upon two factors: the quality at which the images in the file are saved, and the quality at which the pdf was set. For example, I can set images in a pdf file at 300dpi, but when I'm sending a pdf out to proof or feedback, I'm going to set downscaling for images to 72dpi or so to make sure the filesize stays small. If you're going to use a pdf in another file (say a print collateral piece), you'll want that pdf to be set to high resolution otherwise it could muddy up when printed.