Despite
what you may believe, each format exists for a specific reason, be it technical, aesthetic,
or legal/financial. Some formats are patented or have patented technology included.
CHAPTER 10 Sights, Sounds, and Other Fun Things 220
FIGURE 10.13 Skencil is another vector drawing tool.
When you??™re working with editors such as The GIMP, choose the right format for the task
at hand. Following is a list of some of the more popular formats, followed by an explanation
of why you might want to use (or not use) them.
. BMP??”Bitmapped graphics, which are commonly used in Windows. They are large
and uncompressed files, good for icons and wallpaper.
. GIF??”Graphics Interchange Format. Most graphics on the web once used this
format, developed by CompuServe, one of the original online services. GIF uses a
patented lossless compression algorithm (LZW) that requires a license to use.
. JPEG??”The Joint Photographic Experts Group developed this format for electronic
photographs. All digital cameras produce this format by default. The compression
scheme loses some data, but provides a sharp image nonetheless.
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