Portable Network Graphics
Portable Network Graphics (often shortened to PNG) is a bitmapped image format that uses lossless data compression.
Their most common use is within transparent images, as it does support an alpha channel along with a 16-bit color channel.[1][2]
It is commonly used on the internet due to its high quality to size ratio.
Portable Network Graphics Media
PNG transparency demonstration 1
A demonstration of the color depth in a PNG file, in bits per channel. Left: 8 bits; Right: 16 bits. Note the artifacts, adjusted contrast for clarity.
PNG's filter method 0 can use the data in pixels A, B, and C to predict the value for X.
A PNG with 256 colors, which is only 251 bytes large with pre-filter. The same image as a GIF would be more than thirteen times larger.
An illustration of Adam7 interlacing over a 16×16 image
An APNG (animated PNG) file (displays as static image in some web browsers)
Composite image comparing lossy compression in JPEG with lossless compression in PNG: the JPEG artifacts can be easily visible in the background of this kind of image data, where the PNG image has solid color.
References
- ↑ What Is the Alpha Channel in PNG Images? (in en-US). MUO (2016-03-14). Retrieved 2021-04-21.
- ↑ Roberts, Vernon. What's the Best Image Format? (in en-US). Parris (2020-03-03). Retrieved 2021-04-21.
