Your Website - - Experience with PNG?

winwintoo · #1 01-22-2003, 06:32 AM

Does anyone have any ideas/advice about using PNG images on the web??

Thanks, Margaret

G. Couch · #2 01-22-2003, 10:29 AM

Don't! PNG was supposed to replace other forms of graphics like Gif but it never really caught on. It has a long list of features that sound great until you realize that most browsers do not fully support it. When I was doing the design work for my brother's poetry ezine, I accidentally used a PNG file for one small graphic. We discovered that Netscape users could not even view the site and even some IE users had problems...once we removed the little PNG file everything ran fine.

winwintoo · #3 01-22-2003, 11:06 AM

Thank you Greg. I was beginning to form the same opinion. I wanted to use some of the features, but found they didn't work so I went back to .gif - I'm glad to know it wasn't just me.

Take care, Margaret

Mike Needham · #4 01-22-2003, 01:26 PM

Unlike Greg I don't see PNG as much of a problem compatibility wise (although I am all too aware of familiar horror stories too). My major concern is the bloated files it produces, they weigh in at 5 times the comparable to JPEG's.

Not wishing to sound like an advert, I was browsing some time back on file formats and compression routines and happened across a new/old format that I hadn't heard of before. JPEG2000 is a new format to me and I am sure many others - I was so impressed that I bought the product (just like Victor Kiam, although I couldn't afford the whole company

) - heres a link to where I bought it from, although I am not sure if there may be free links to it (probably, knowing my luck) http://www.leadtools.com/Utilities/P...op_plug-in.htm also here is some more info on the format http://www.jpeg.org/JPEG2000.html The great advantage seems not to be so much in file weight but in the less lossy compression routine it employs (although indirectly this affects the files size as you can trade off image quality for filesize because your info is far purer to begin with).

So pretty much same outcome as Greg, dump the PNG's and go with JPEG still (or have a look at the new one)