What's the Difference Between JPEG and GIF?

Images are just images, right? Well, actually there are a zillion formats for images out there in the world, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. But luckily, only two of those formats are commonly used on the Web: JPEG and GIF. The only tricky part is deciding which to use when.

Use JPEG for photos complex graphics

1. Works best for continuous tone images, like photographs.
2. Can represent images with up to 16 million different color.
3. Is a "lossy" format because to reduce the file size, it throws away some
information about the image.
4. Doesn't support transparency.

Use GIF for images with solid colors, logos, and geometric shapes

1. Works best for images with a few solid colors, and images with lines, like logos, clip art, and small text in images.

2. Can represent images with up to 256 different color.

3. GIF also compresses the file to reduce its size, but doesn't throws anything way. So, it is a "loss less" format.

4. Allows one background color to be set to "transparent" so that anything underneath the image will show through.