Image Formats

Image Formats
The following are some common formats with brief definitions of their uses. Note that Photoshop can handle many other graphics formats as well.

• Bitmap (.bmp). This is a standard graphics file format for Windows.
• GIF (.gif). GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. It is one of the three common graphics formats you can use for Web publishing. Because it is a compressed format, it takes less time to send by modem.
• JPEG (.jpg). JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG is another popular format for Web publishing.
• PDF (.pdf). Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format, a system for creating documents that can be read cross-platform.
• PNG (.png). Stands for Portable Network Graphic. It's a newer and arguably better format for Web graphics, combining GIF's good compression with the JPEG's unlimited color palette. However, older browsers don't support it.
• TIFF (.tif). TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format. These files can be saved for use on either Macintosh or Windows machines. This is also often the preferred format for desktop publishing applications, such as InDesign and QuarkXPress. When you save a TIFF file, you can choose whether to include layers. If you do include layers in a TIFF file, the image might not be compatible with all desktop publishing programs.
• EPS (.eps). Encapsulated PostScript is another format often used for desktop publishing. It uses the PostScript page description language, and can be used by both Macintosh and PC.
• Raw (usually .raw). This format saves image information in the most flexible format for transferring files between applications, devices (such as digital cameras), and computer platforms.