The most common image formats and types of formats

Each of us, one way or another, faces images. Let's look at the question of understanding this term somewhat more broadly. After all, image formats include not only graphics (drawings, photos, animations, animations, etc.), but also video. Let's dwell on the issues of converting files, as well as storing one or another type of information.

What are image formats?

This is information stored in a file that is designed to visualize data (display it on a playback device like a monitor, TV, printer, mobile device, etc.).

As for the information in the file, for the most part it describes the way of visualization, the method of creating an integral static or dynamic image, its size (not to be confused with the size of the file itself), the number and depth of colors and their shades, and so on.

The concept of vector and raster graphics

First, let's consider what image formats are used exclusively in the standard understanding of graphics. It should be clearly delineated between vector and bitmap graphics. These two types are basic.

Vector graphics allow you to visualize an object based on a mathematical description of the set of cumulative elements that make up the image, which are called primitives. These include the simplest concepts familiar to everyone from the school's bench. These are points, lines, curves, circles, polygons, etc.

The advantage of this approach is the possibility of describing an arbitrarily large number of individual elements in a mathematical model without significantly increasing the final file size. In addition, scalability is very strong here, which allows you to resize each individual element or a complete set without losing the quality of the entire image. Such descriptive algorithm is suitable mainly for graphics created manually, for example, in some graphic editor. For photos, this method is not applicable.

Raster graphics involve the use of a special grid consisting of rectangular objects (points) of different colors, called pixels. Here the quality of the picture is determined by the size of the grid (the more pixels in length and width or their total representation, the better the image), the number of colors and their depth, the applied color gamut (color space) and resolution (the number of pixels per unit area). In this case, this method allows you to process objects of any complexity and set the same smooth transitions from one color to another, which is not in the vector graphics. But in this case, simple images often have a very large file size, and the possibility of accurate scaling is reduced to almost zero.

The most common types of graphic images

Now let's look at the image file formats themselves, which are used in computer technologies most often.

BMP is the simplest variant, based on the RGB color scheme (red, green, blue) and having a rather weak compression algorithm without loss of quality. Advantages he has no, also files are very large.

JPG (JPEG) is the most common format used most often for storing photos. The compression is significant, but the loss of quality is very large. After strong compression, the source material can not be restored, but if minimized, the differences will be less noticeable, and the file size will become significantly smaller.

PNG is one of the most interesting formats that can be compressed without any loss of quality. Animation does not support this format (as well as the previous two), but when using the so-called alpha channel, each pixel can be set to a transparency level, which makes it somewhat similar to the next type of graphics.

GIF - a format that supports animation and algorithms of strong compression without loss of quality. Its main advantage is that you can create a series of images with a cyclic repeat or a change of one another. Despite the feeble depth of color, it is used mainly for "live" wallpaper, animated smileys and avatars.

TIFF is the format most often used by professional web designers because it has a high color depth (192 bits). Compression is made without loss, but working with this format without special preparation is very difficult. Browsers of this type almost do not support.

ICO - a format for creating icons, because it allows you to use very small sizes of drawings. In terms of structure, it somewhat resembles BMP, however, it supports transparency parameters like GIF and PNG.

EPS - a format of two varieties: vector and raster graphics. It is mainly used in publishing houses or for creating fonts, if in the future the image output assumes the use of PostScript devices.

PICT is the most common Macintosh format. Its versatility lies in the fact that a single image file can contain vector and bitmap graphics, sound, have any color depth, and also use the progressive RLE compression method.

PCX - a format for storing raster images with a color depth of 24 bits. Compression is very fast, but not suitable for converting detailed graphics, such as photos.

RAW - a universal format used for images coming directly from digital cameras. About it you can say that this is the format of the best image quality. It can serve as a source material when processing not only images, but also sound. In addition, meta-data support provides a huge potential for processing and applying lossless compression algorithms or with loss of any level. The format is quite specific and requires some knowledge when working with it.

File formats of specialized graphics editors

In addition to the standard types, you can separate out separately the formats of graphic images used in specialized editors.

PDF - a format that can contain text and graphic data. Developed by Adobe. This format involves using different compression methods for each particular element contained in the final file. Today it is universal mainly for technical documentation in electronic form.

CDR - vector format of the graphic editor Corel Draw. You can edit it only with this software package. Other editors are not supported, but easily exported to other formats.

AI - the format of the program Adobe Illustrator, supported by most other editors. The main feature is the highest image stability and full compatibility with PostScript technology. Can be used as an intermediate format when translating from one to another.

PSD - the best image format of the Adobe Photoshop software package for intermediate editing of complex images. Allows the use of layers and modes of mixing, but has a larger size than other formats. As the final format for saving files is used exclusively in the program itself.

Large Format Images

If we talk about processing large-format images, where you want to take into account the high detail, then you should use RAW, TIFF or PSD.

However, many professional photo and video cameras, which have matrices at the level of 20-25 Mp, have their own standards. Most of them are adapted to the most common types of formats. Here everything depends only on the settings of the camera itself. The same goes for mobile devices.

Basic types of video and animation

Now let's briefly dwell on the video, because it can also be interpreted in a sense as an image, or rather as a set of alternating images (frames). Here the determining factor is the frame rate per second (fps) and the size of the image in pixels.

Initially, at the dawn of the development of digital video, this was all the well-known AVI format, which is still used, since it is a kind of container containing information processed or compressed with completely different methods (codecs). A special decoder is required for playback.

A little later, there appeared such well-known formats as WMV, MPG, MKV, MP4, VOB, TS and many others, and the latter can be considered even as the image formats of a high-definition TV, allowing to play back files with HD, Full HD (2k) or Ultra HD (4k).

As for the animation, today the most famous is the Flash technology. Initially, it was the development of the corporation Macromedia, but then it was bought by Adobe and substantially modernized. The format of such files is SWF. It is used mainly to create small animated movies, computer animation, banners or for unpretentious games.

Mobile systems

If we talk about mobile systems (smartphones or tablets based on Android, iOS, Blackberry, etc.), then specialized image formats are extremely rare. In general, standard computer image formats are used for both graphics and video. However, without the installed codecs and decoders, some types of video will not be played. That is why we will have to solve the problem of converting the source material into another type.

For example, conventional phones perceive only 3GP format. Android or iOS recommend using MP4. But in general, there are enough options.

Change the basic settings for images

Probably everyone understands that editing should be done with the help of special programs.

The simplest operations on resizing, reflection, rotation, tilt and others can be done even in the most primitive Paint editor, which is included in the package of any Windows operating system.

If more complex actions are required, for example, changes in color, saturation, contrast, editing layers, splitting the image into separate components, etc., then you will have to use professional packages like the above-mentioned Corel Draw or Adobe Photoshop.

To edit the video there are their utilities, for example, Vegas Pro. In addition to standard features, they can use specialized effects and modeling systems that allow you to transfer to a pre-built mathematical model a real image of the type of shooting of the Morpheus and Neo fight in the first part of the Matrix.

Convert formats

Conversion (conversion) is done using utilities called converters. One of the brightest representatives is Xilisoft Video Converter, which can transform both graphics and video.

For graphics, you can prefer, for example, ACDSee Ashampoo Photo Commander, Free Image Convert And Resize or something else. Today such programs can be found very much.

The only thing worth paying attention to is the final format and possible loss of quality (image compression formats). When you view a picture or video on a smartphone or tablet, it will not be so noticeable, but on the TV panel the difference becomes very noticeable.

Which format is preferred for data storage?

The photo on the computer can be stored in a universal JPG format. When viewing them on the monitor, special clarity is not needed. Another thing is when the photos need to be printed. It is better to use the original camera formats.

When translating one format to another, it is simply impossible to restore the "source", so, by providing files to the studio, changing their initial appearance is not recommended. An exception, if you have the necessary knowledge and make editing yourself using professional software.

The same goes for the video. It all depends on which device it will be viewed on.

Conclusion

Image formats are numerous and varied, it can be graphics and video. In the article the most popular formats were considered. Questions of their processing and transformation, selection of software tools, the format used to store data, etc., each user decides himself.