Choosing image formats

There are 3 primary image formats that will be used on the OLPC.

SVG

This is an object-oriented drawing format ideally used for drawings created with tools like Inkspace, CorelDraw, CAD software, etc.

JPEG

This is a compression format that is ideally suited to photographs whether they are scanned or photographed on a digital camera. This is a very, very bad choice for scanned text. You can tell when someone has made this mistake because the text is blurry.

GIF

This is the best choice when you have to scan material like line drawings, cartoons, or text. The common factor in all these source materials is that they have a few different shades of color, perhaps only black and white. Even when the scanned original is stained or has shadows on it, you can usually tell your image editor to convert it to a 2-color black and white image (or increase the contrast to maximum) and sharpen the image.

The same applies to JPEGs sourced from a digital camera. For instance, if you photograph some text then take the JPEG from the camera and convert it to GIF. This will sharpen the edges of the letters and make it easier to read. In addition you should reduce the size of the image taking into consideration the number of bits available on the screen. The first systems will be 1200 x 900 at 200dpi.