On Saturday 26 June 2004 12:34, Julien Olivier wrote:
GIF is not suitable for photos (doesn't compress well at today's color depth). PNG makes a file of comparable size to GIF for generated graphics or other situations where you want non-lossy compression.
So what does GIF offer? In the past it offered compatibility with older software but that shouldn't be an issue now.
Adding it to specialised image processing tools may be good for compatibility, but is there a real need to add it to every program that supports writinga graphics file?
AFAIK, the latest Internet Explorer still doesn't support transparent PNGs. So, if you want to publish transparent pictures on your website, and have them look good for 90% of your audience, you still have to use GIFs.
Or is there another solution ?
You might want to look at "MSIE PNG Alpha Channel Fix" http://redvip.homelinux.net/varios/explorer-png-en.html and http://www.koivi.com/ie-png-transparency/ (this one uses php to convert pages and I don't like it as much). AFAIK MSIE for mac PCs does support this without ugly hacks. I hope mozilla and probably IE will have full mng/jng support some day...