The Crayon Box / .PNG Format - Education from Anulien / Anulien 20 years ago

.PNG Format - Education from Anulien

Why is my gif so grainy? OMG NERD SPEAK INC!

Because of the design of the file format there had to be some limitations of colors. Formats like JPG label each pixel with a 24bit value whereas GIF only allows for 4bit index relating to a pallete. GIF strictly requires Indexed Colors Palettes where as other formats like TIF and PNG adhere to it but do not require it.

Indexed Color Palletes - any set of 256 colors from the 24bit color set.

So when you create your gif images you can use ANY colors you want, however when all is said and done only 256 of the colors used to create the image will be saved. Different gif programs handle the color selection differently, photoshop works of tone settings, most used colors and closest index matching to create its the palette. Older gif programs would let you see the color pallete at any time, i don't know if photoshop lets you create a color palette.

Gilae 20 years ago

I does let you create a colour palette...but I don't like restrictions ;)
I think her question was more why do mine seem less grainy then hers. But the nerd lesson was a good one!

I chose to dither mine using a diffusion dither. It pixelates it more but seems to come out a bit more smooth. I really think it depends on the image.

Anulien 20 years ago

Gilae

I does let you create a colour palette...but I don't like restrictions

Using gif's automatically restricts you though since you are limited to a 256 color palette no matter what. Your's was less grainy than hers because of your choice of colors probably.

Smart people use PNG format when wanting to do any type of transparency. Smart people just use PNG format all the time though.

Maeya 20 years ago

Doesn't PNG only show as a transparency on Mozilla though? Or do I have my file extensions mixed up?

Temprah 20 years ago

Don't know about Mozilla, but png doesn't show up transparent in IE, I know that.. does in Firefox I think I heard.

Anulien 20 years ago

Temprah

Don't know about Mozilla, but png doesn't show up transparent in IE, I know that.. does in Firefox I think I heard.

True story. PNG is the best portable graphics format ever. Microsoft refuses to completely support the format in their browser, for a long time people would not harness the awesomeness of PNG because of those assholes. But the rest of world has embraced the greatest of PNG now...except Microsoft. Mozilla/Firefox/Opera have full PNG support on their Windows browsers. IE has not for the past 10 years and it is doubtful it will ever.

Mai 20 years ago

Yep, Anulian is a geek... :shh Heehee, I agree though. .gifs are good for logos and things with few colours and details but otherwise yay for .png.

Gilae 20 years ago

Except most people are still using explorer...so I like to know exactly what my stuff is going to look like for EVERYBODY if I can help it ;)

Rikr 20 years ago

IE is teh sux0rz. :x

Temprah 20 years ago

So does png do animations or just transparencies?

Anulien 20 years ago

Temprah

So does png do animations or just transparencies?

PNG is strictly a single-image format. However a format called MNG was implemented from the PNG standard strictly for multiple-image formatting. MNG has the same lossless compression as PNG and has the wonderful alpha channels.

The MNG plugin for photoshop 7+ can be found at http://www.libpng.org/pub/mng/bin/JNG_Plugin-0.8-photoshop7-win32.zip

Again, blame Microsoft for not having MNG support in their browser too...the internet could look so much prettier but noooooooo.

Temprah 20 years ago

Anulien

The MNG plugin for photoshop 7+ can be found at http://www.libpng.org/pub/mng/bin/JNG_Plugin-0.8-photoshop7-win32.zip

PS 7+ and I use 6... grrrr :censored Guess I should try and install that 7 disk /sigh ...I hate change...

Rikr 20 years ago

Anulien

Again, blame Microsoft for not having MNG support in their browser too...the internet could look so much prettier but noooooooo.

Well they didnt come up with this, so it CANT be any good. :lol:

Mai 20 years ago

Yep, microsoft is a Xenophobic company that hates anything they don't control. H8trs!

Vex 20 years ago

contrary to popular belief, IE *can* support PNG transparency, you just have to make it.

Temprah 20 years ago

Ok, after a statement like that you know you have to say how to make it!! So.. how?

Anulien 20 years ago

Vex

contrary to popular belief, IE *can* support PNG transparency, you just have to make it.

you should not have to make the leading browser fully comply with a standard, especially globally accepted one.

Gilae 20 years ago

Thanks Anu, that's sweet to know. So that should work then with ImageReady?

Anulien 20 years ago

Gilae

Thanks Anu, that's sweet to know. So that should work then with ImageReady?

I have no idea! I use Linux and we don't have ImageReady! What is ImageReady? I don't know!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c2coff=1&safe=off&q=imageready+.png&spell=1

Gilae 20 years ago

ImageReady is a software commonly included in the Photoshop package which allows you to create moving .gifs.

Vex 20 years ago

Temprah

Ok, after a statement like that you know you have to say how to make it!! So.. how?

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/pngopacity
http://webfx.eae.net/dhtml/pngbehavior/pngbehavior.html

Anulien ~ I know you shouldnt *have* to, but for those anal about grainy gifs and <3 their PNGs... why not?

btw~ one of the sexiest sites i have actually ever seen ( it goes beyond graphics and the coding omfg the coding this site took.. makes me wanna hump my monitor ) PNGs all OVER the place, and looks perfect in IE :)
http://www.jagerguild.com/