Different types of Image file formats

You possibly have seen different types of image file formats like .jpg, .bmp, .tiff etc. In this post I will discuss very briefly about different types of image file formats.

Before discussing image file formats it is good to know that there are two image compression algorithm. One is loseless which reduce the image size but does not hurt image quality and another is lossy image compression algorithm which reduce the image size as well as reduce image quality.

Image file formats can be categorized into two. A)Raster formats B)Vector formats.

A)Raster formats: This image file formats store images as bitmaps.
The following image file formats falls into Raster category.

1)JPEG: The name JPEG stands for "Joint Photographic Experts Group" and in most cases the file format is in lossy format.

2)Exif: The Exif stands for Exchangeable image file format. It was coded for exchange image between cameras.

3)Tiff: The TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format. It is very flexible format as well as need less space than other format.

4)PNG: PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics. It supports true color that is 16 million colors. The size in PNG is greater than JPG format.

5)GIF: GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. It can only support 256 colors. But still gif format is widely used because with small amount of colors it can create cartoon style image, logos and it supports animation. GIF formats use loseless compression.

6)BMP: BMP files are for windows only and they are uncompressed. Because of that BMP files are extremely large. If you convert a bmp file of 3M to jpg file then it can become only 100K.

7)PPM, PGM, PBM, PNM image file formats also are an example of raster formats.

B)Vector formats:
Vector image file formats can contain bitmap data as well as it contains 3D graphic file formats.
Example of vector formats are CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile),SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), ODG (OpenDocument Graphics), EPS (Encapsulated PostScript), PDF (Portable Document Format), SWF (Small Web Format), WMF / EMF (Windows Metafile / Enhanced Metafile), XPS (XML Paper Specification).

For any image/video you can buy camera and take photo yourself. You can also get help any photographer or any multimedia production services as well and in any type of formats. They have variety of devices which can help you. If you are looking for multimedia production services for your website or any type of editing of multimedia you can have a look at various Corporate Video.