Optimising your Graphics for the Web When working on Web page graphics the number of formats available at your disposal decreases. The GIF and JPEG have many similarities, for a start both are raster images. They are both cross-platform formats, allowing them to be viewed on Macs, PCs or Unix systems and both formats are built around a compression scheme that can greatly reduce file size. It is this compression element that has made these two formats the key players in Web graphics. Nobody likes to wait for anything these days, especially not large cumbersome graphics files.
All graphical browsers support it.
It works best when used for line art and simple images such as logos because it only supports 8-bit colour. The GIF uses and stores a colour table or palette for each picture making it transportable. GIFs can be interlaced. The interlaced GIF is not faster loading but works well at appeasing impatient users who are more willing to wait when they can see something appearing. GIFS can also be saved as transparent.