Graphics Formats

There are two main graphics formats in use on the web, GIF and JPEG. You should be able to create both of these formats using any good image editor. A Popular shareware one is Paint Shop Pro, available to download. GIF files are generally larger than JPEG files, although they can be better quality. JPEG files have much better compression than GIF, although this is normally accompanied by a loss in quality. If you are not sure which format to use, try saving the picture as both and see which looks better.

A relatively new development is animated GIF's. These enable simple animations without having to buy expensive movie-making equipment. An animated GIF is simply a number of GIF's put together in one file, which loads them one after another with a specified time gap. Paint Shop Pro also allows the creation of animated GIF's, and can automatically create transition effects between a start and end image.