December 13th, 2009

Give PNG a Chance



When I led the PNG working group and edited the first ten drafts of the PNG file format specification, I hoped that PNG image files would swiftly replace GIFs.

I was wrong about that. Netscape, which had offered nary a word of input during the specification process, came out with animated GIF support just as PNG was being finalized as a still image format. Doh!

All the same, PNGs are everywhere. They are all over the web (though still not as common as GIFs). And they are "under the hood" in many products, including Microsoft Office.

A lot of people don't quite get what PNG is good for, and what it isn't good for. 8-bit PNG ("png8") is a great replacement for non-animated GIFs, and png24 is a great format for lossless storage of truecolor, high-resolution originals. But for web distribution of a truecolor, photorealistic image, you almost certainly want a lossy-but-tiny JPEG file.

Many people also don't realize that PNGs are supported in Internet Explorer 6, with certain caveats, and fully and beautifully supported in later versions of Internet Explorer... and of course the rest of the "good" browsers. Apart from the specialized niche of really cheesy animation, it really is possible to "burn all GIFs" and move on.

PNG hasn't quite reached the finish line yet. But true believers like Stoyan have kept the home fires burning with great how-to articles like Give PNG a Chance... which features a browser-generated music video. Excuse me, something in my eye...

You can read about the history of the PNG format here.
Check out another article
November 9th, 2009
UX Show & Tell