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The PNG image file format is now more popular than GIF

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Re: The PNG image file format is now more popular than GIF

#73
post #69
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

jpegs are for photos, and are the wrong thing to use for things like icons, screenshots, web images and so forth.

Actually, in a Retina world, it is often better to use a low quality JPEG at high res, than a high quality PNG at low res.

Well, besides the fact that we don't actually live in a "Retina world", the use of JPEG, even on high quality settings, for an artificial (= not taken from a camera) image pretty much precludes the ability to produce derivative works from it without a much more serious loss of quality. That's not to mention that there are some things which high resolutions cannot make up for, like color bleeding and other pretty serious fuzzing that JPEG can introduce at low quality settings.

Re: The PNG image file format is now more popular than GIF

#74

Wonder what happened to the WebP format from Google? Last when I tried using it, there were no nice image converters that would convert my PNGs into WebP properly. Any live websites using it?

WebP seemed fairly pointless; its advantages over existing formats were slim, it had some disadvantages, and lacked any compelling new functionality (e.g. good HDR support). Basically it was pretty "meh."

Given the huge effort required to get any sort of widespread adoption of a new format—and without widespread adoption there's little point unless you've got some unusual features (which WebP didn't)—I'm not sure there was ever much chance WebP would go anywhere.

I'm generally no fan of Microsoft, but MS's new image format, JPEG XR†, seems vastly superior to WebP in almost every way... and it actually does have compelling new features.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_XR

Re: The PNG image file format is now more popular than GIF

#75
post #36

"The PNG image file format is now more popular than GIF" ... On the Web! PNG has been more popular than GIF since a very long time for basically anything non-web needing lossless picture compression. From smartphones icons to OS icons, software logos and icons, etc. I'd say the proportion is about 100:1. Actually I was suprised while just running a "find" on my Linux distro to even find a few .gif files. But thousand…

> Screenshots taken from OS X and Linux are saved to PNG files You can really save screenies in whatever format you like on linux with imagemagick. It's just $ import -window root screenshot. Unless you're referring to whatever the DE has implemented, but I've never taken an SS without using the terminal, so I have no idea.

On OS X, Grab still inexplicably saves as TIFF, and there's no way to change it despite years of bitching from users. GJ, Apple.

Re: The PNG image file format is now more popular than GIF

#76

"The PNG image file format is now more popular than GIF" ... On the Web! PNG has been more popular than GIF since a very long time for basically anything non-web needing lossless picture compression. From smartphones icons to OS icons, software logos and icons, etc. I'd say the proportion is about 100:1. Actually I was suprised while just running a "find" on my Linux distro to even find a few .gif files. But thousand…

Unfortunately there's still no animated PNG. There were apparently attempts to create a standard, but they failed. That sucks.

Re: The PNG image file format is now more popular than GIF

#77

Wonder what happened to the WebP format from Google? Last when I tried using it, there were no nice image converters that would convert my PNGs into WebP properly. Any live websites using it?

WebP seemed fairly pointless; its advantages over existing formats were slim, it had some disadvantages , and lacked any compelling new functionality (e.g. good HDR support). Basically it was pretty "meh." Given the huge effort required to get any sort of widespread adoption of a new format—and without widespread adoption there's little point unless you've got some unusual features (which WebP didn't)—I'm not sure th…

>JPEG XR†, seems vastly superior to WebP in almost every way

No animations duh.

Re: The PNG image file format is now more popular than GIF

#78

Wonder what happened to the WebP format from Google? Last when I tried using it, there were no nice image converters that would convert my PNGs into WebP properly. Any live websites using it?

> Any live websites using it?

Even google isn't using it on thier websites. That says a lot.

Re: The PNG image file format is now more popular than GIF

#79
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember you guys wanted to create simplified MNG 2.0, without stuff like MAGN and delta-PNG. What happened to it?

Honestly, I tuned out. Animations are procedural and are best represented with a scripting language - not with a declarative image format. Resource-constraining javascript within an (i)frame is probably a better way to spend a browser developer's time.

This is true for the majority of animations, but .gifs have come to serve a niche for short video content sans audio that they uniquely fulfill on the web. If APNG or MNG or whatever could replace huge animated .gifs for things like r/cinemagraphs I'd be thrilled.

Re: The PNG image file format is now more popular than GIF

#80
post #6
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or: wow! Only now?

poor support/awareness of animated PNGs has been keeping GIF well represented for ages

Neither APNG or MNG are supported in 2 of the big 3 browsers. If either format were supported in 2/3 of IE, Chrome/Webkit and Firefox/Gecko, it would get picked up by the other within 2 releases. Unfortunately the webkit/gecko guys are punting to the libpng guys, and nobody has budged.
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