HTML, XHTML, and CSS: Your visual blueprint™ for designing effective Web pages

Chapter 4. WORKING WITH IMAGES

Understanding Image File Formats

When creating images, you have many formats from which to choose, from common open formats supported by most image-editing tools to proprietary ones supported by only a few. When creating Web pages, the choices are much simpler, as only three formats are available.

Graphics Interchange Format

The Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF, is perhaps the most common image format on the Web. The format, which was invented by CompuServe in 1987, actually predates the Web.

Color Palette

The biggest limitation of a GIF is its color palette. GIFs are 8-bit images, meaning that they can contain a maximum of 256 colors. When the format was originally developed, 8-bit monitors were the norm, so the limitation ...