Tiff vs gif vs Jpg?

[Lillishiana]

I tried to create my sig as a tif.. and it didnt show up
so i tried as a gif.. and it screwed the graphics up
so i'm stuck with jpg.. why did this happen and what are the benifits of each format? anyone know?

[DivadBearhart]

I think that Tiff is an old format not used much anymore,Gif is uncompressed and the files are usually huge.
Jpg files are compressed and probably the most common ones found.
Thats about all I know about it.

[BonlainyT]

TIFF images are HUGE usually and still used but for higher quality requirements I believe.

[Alermik]

Actually, I think gif is compressed; file sizes usually aren't too bad. Bitmap (BMP) is uncompressed, and are usually pretty big. I don't know anything about TIFF.

As I understand it, GIF files use fewer colors in order to save size, but this can make them look grainy at times. JPGs, on the other hand, compress by averaging colors over adjacent pixels. This allows a broader range of colors, but can make them look blurry if they become too small.

[Spazz]

Tiff

TIFF or the Tagged Image File Format is a rather old standard that is still very popular today. It is a highly flexible and platform-independent format which is supported by numerous image processing applications and virtually all all prepress software on the market.

TIFF is strictly used for bitmap data. It doesn't contain text nor vector data, even though its structure would permit additional tags to handle such data.

More about tiff here

GIF

GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format, and like most acronyms, that doesn’t explain what it’s for particularly well. The GIF was invented by CompuServe, who needed a universal format for graphics. The compression algorithm for GIFs is owned by Unisys, and anyone who produces software that creates GIFs has to obtain a license from Unisys to be able to do so. Luckily, we don’t need licenses to make GIF files, so we can carry on as we were, without the fear of Unisys breathing down our necks.

More on gif here

JPG/JPEG

JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, which is a standardization committee. It also stands for the compression algorithm that was invented by this committee. To complicate things a bit more, JPEG compressed images are often stored in a file format called JFIF (JPEG File Interchange Format), which a lot of people also refer to as JPEG!

and more on jpeg here

Whew that should help, probably more than you needed?!

[Herbert Dypp]

in a nutshell, TIFF's are the highest quality images, but shouldnt be used for web images due to their large size. GIFs & JPGs are both 'lossy' formats but have a much smaller size and are therefore ideal for web pages.

[Mildane]

I always thought Tiff was pretty hott. Havent seen her in a while though.

Oh yeah, Spazz knows too much. I'm suspicious.

[Spazz]

I like to read and when I am presented with the question I like to look for the answers, heh. It was all up there on a webpage. . .

[fieni]

btw, GIF patent will expire later this month.

[Alermik]

Really? What does that mean for the format?

[Spazz]

Here is some information regarding the Patent. . .

ZDNET Article