GIF
Also known as: Graphics Interchange Format
Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a file format for saving images. Files in this format have the extension .gif.
GIF was introduced in the 1980s by Compuserve to allow images to be exchanged over computer networks. Thanks to compression techniques, GIF images are relatively small. The format is also widely used on Web sites.
One limitation of the way images are compressed (resized) in GIF format is that only a limited number of colors can be used. A palette of up to 256 colors can be defined and used per image. Partly because of this, the compression technique is especially suitable for graphics that consist of larger areas of the same color. Photos in particular suffer a lot of loss of quality, so JPEG is usually used for this purpose.
The GIF format also offers the ability to animate images (animated GIF), in which several "frames" are superimposed and displayed sequentially at intervals.
