png

True color, small file

PNG(Portable Network Graphics) file format is regarded, and was made, as the free and open-source successor to the GIF file format. The PNG file format supports true color(16 million colors) whereas the GIF file format only allows 256 colors. PNG excels when the image has large areas of uniform color. The lossless PNG format is best suited for editing pictures, and the lossy formats like JPG are best for final distribution of photographic-type images because of smaller file size. Many older browsers do not yet support the PNG file format, however with the release of Internet Explorer 7 all popular modern browsers fully support PNG.

It's used for lossless compression and for display of images on the web. Unlike GIF, PNG supports 24-bit images and produces background transparency without jagged edges; however, some web browsers do not support PNG images. PNG format supports RGB, Indexed Color, Grayscale, and Bitmap mode images without alpha channels. PNG preserves transparency in grayscale and RGB images.