Image file formats

A collection of file formats.

GIF

GIF is old, proprietary but widely supported format. Today it's mostly surpassed by PNG - in all regards except one: support for simple animations. If you need animated icon or something like that - use GIF, by all means (all patents related to GIF are expired by now), but for anything else... there are PNG and JPEG.

There is a page on choosing image formats that will help you to understand the differences and how to know which format will be best for the intended use.

More info can be found on Wikipedia.

JPEG

JPEG 2000 is the most recent work of the JPEG standards committee. It is intended to improve upon several areas of the original JPEG standard such as lossy encoding, blocky appearance, and inefficient compression.

Although this standard is intended to be implemented on a no-charge basis, the JPEG committee does allow for inclusion of patented or otherwise non-free technology as per ITU and ISO policy on reasonable and non-descriminatory terms. It is problematic or impossible for open source/free software to implement such standards.