Okay. I've heard that PNGs can support alpha channels\partial transparencies, but I can't seem to get it to work. Can anyone tell me how to do this? Note - I'm using Paint Shop Pro 7, otherwise I'll be downloading GIMP for Windows at some point. Thanks. [addsig]

ok, Windows' support for PNG simply SUX!! Especially in IE. Actually PNGs have a transparency layer, but it seems like windows apps are _way_ too stupid to see them. I've header that it works with IE6, but not sure about this. Anyways, I'd recommend you to use GIMP for PNGs, since PNG is a free format, like all GNU stuff.
[addsig]

Just though I should point out that its only pre IE6 that dont support trans in pngs, This is IE only, every Windows gfx proggie and ones that do other things support them.

I just though I should correct Kagez, in his blind hatred for windows, statment as he got some things wrong.

(-;

Use Mozilla, it rocks more than IE. Or use jpg/gif for web pages if you want lots of ppl to browse it who will probably use IE and old IEs at that.

another idea would be to let a php script choose which graphics to display. In generall PNGs can be much smaller than JPG or GIF, with a better quality. You could let the script check for the browser, then generate a page which uses the graphics suited for that browser. You could also ealisy do DHTML stuff like that
[addsig]

Yeah, right now I'm doing the IE compatible portion of my partfish theme. Next I'll do the Mozilla\Netscape portion. I don't need the transparent effect, it would just be really cool. [addsig]

as a matter of fact, the std theme of partyfish will use (or better, is using ) PNGs as graphics format, simply because they are small, smaller than GIFs. Another big reason we chose PNG was that even _if_ we would use GIFs, we wouldn't be able to compress them, because the LZH stuff is patented by Unisys. And, non-compressed GIFs lollipop like hell, and are big like.... you know what I wanna say
Anyways, I would like you to use PNGs as much as possible, and try to avoid the GIF format, since we don't wanna get issues with Unisys (even if the chances for that are low). I don't say "Stop using GIFs", but it may happen that we refuse themes using GIFs. I don't say we will refuse all GIF themes, but it might happen.
[addsig]

Geez, I use gif's all the time, uncompressed. I can't bear to part with them. They're better than JPEGs anyday. [addsig]

so are PNGs
anyways, it's up to you what you use
[addsig]

I don't have to worry about anyone breathing down my back because I use the CompuServe 89a standard, and I'm sure most people do. Besides most of my images average out to only 10 - 30 colors so gif works just fine for me. [addsig]

Gif is better than jpg for images where there are straight define color lines, for images where colors blend etc jpg is better.
Duno about png, their a different sort of thing, with dif versions.

PNG actually is exactly the same as GIF, except that compression is done with gzip (not too sure). I don't know how the internal structure differs, but I know that you can do almost everything you can do with GIF also with PNG, except animations.

Quote:
On 2002-10-30 19:42, KaGez wrote:
PNG actually is exactly the same as GIF, except that compression is done with gzip (not too sure).


It is not exactly the same as GIF. PNG can be used for much more advanced purposes. Just think of the available colors. PNG offers up to 48-bit trucecolor, iirc while GIF has 256.

Quote:
I don't know how the internal structure differs, but I know that you can do almost everything you can do with GIF also with PNG, except animations.


You might replace GIFs with PNGs but the other way round won't always work. [addsig]

okok, but I was talking more about web usage of these 2 formats. I mean, nobody would use a 200x100x48 banner for a webpage!
But yes, you are right. But, still,for web usage they are almost the same. Since you would compress (and index) PNGs anyways
[addsig]

What is the deal with 48-bit color? Color modes don't go that high!! Maybe with a special vid card on an Itanium, but certainly not on a normal system. [addsig]

erm... well, "erm" is the only word comming out of my mouth now...
If you have a image with 256 (defined) colors, the image will only need to store those colors in a palette. If you have a 24bit image, each color of a pixel will be described with 24bit. Now, if you have a 800x600 image, and each pixel is described with 24bits, look at the image size:
800*600*24bits = 11520000bits = 1440000bytes = 1.4MB. You can't even use that for images on the web. Will take forever to load
Now imagine the whole thing in 48bit. That would be the double, so 2.8MB. That's increduble. And you won't see the difference at all.
I think 256 colors were 4 bits (or even less), so if you use a 256 color image you would have 800x600*4bits = 1920000bits = 240000bytes = 0.24MB. Now there _is_ a difference, don't you think so?
[addsig]

probably the only use for such high resolutions/color depth would be for print media, where you actually get the picture on high quality paper, instead of a computer screen...
the human eye can only distinguish between about 20000 colours.. the additional colours in truecolor for example are important anway, though... the information is important for things like changing the contrast/brightness/hue, etc...

but, as fsvara kindly added, we don't need 48bits for web pages or anything we do within out all-day work
[addsig]