The PNG image file format is used by 78.5% of all websites for a reason.
PNG is a popular raster image format that became the successor of GIFs. With its ability to hide transparent areas and its 24-bit color palette, web designers use PNGs on millions of sites.
This article examines the top benefits of PNG files and how you can use them in your business or personal projects.
Read on to learn the differences between PNG image files and JPEGs. Discover how PNGs offer smaller image file sizes. And how the open standard allows you to convert PNGs to other image file formats.
What are PNG Files?
The Portable Graphics Format or PNG was first released in 1995.
The CompuServe GIF image format was popular at the time because it allowed image backgrounds to become transparent. However, it was limited to an 8-bit color palette which meant images looked unnatural at times.
PNG improved on these deficiencies and all while remaining license-free. Yet, it also offers other great advantages that serve web designers even today.
Here are the five top benefits of using PNG files.
1. Better File Compression
One of the biggest advantages PNG image files have over other transparency formats is their size.
The improved compression algorithm can produce smaller image file sizes compared to a GIF. It offers lossless compression, which means images don’t lose their clarity when saved as a PNG.
However, compared to the popular JPEG format, PNGs produce very large file sizes.
The reason for this is the transparency factor. Transparent areas still require the image to retain data even though they’re empty. As .jpg files don’t offer transparency, they produce smaller files.
2. Improved Image Reproduction
PNG files support 24-bit RGB colors, just like JPEGs. That means they can reproduce high-definition photographs using their 16 million color palette.
They also use 32-bit RGBA color spaces, including grayscale. RGBA includes the Alpha or transparency option, which we’ll cover shortly. Other image formats like .bmp or .jpg don’t support it, but PNGs do.
PNGs are especially good at reproducing blocks of color, unlike JPEGs.
Many website icons use the .png file extension because they’re small in size and can overlap with other elements on the screen. Combining different layers to create a PNG is also a great way to convert them into a PDF later.
3. Full Alpha Transparency
PNGs rise above other image formats because they integrate gradient alpha transparency. But what does that mean?
Imagine a side-scrolling computer game.
Sprites on the screen overlap backdrops like skyscrapers. Bullets or lasers fly from the hero sprite to destroy an enemy. The enemy explodes into a ball of flames until the dust settles.
The hero image shows a person with two arms, head, torso, and legs. However, if you save this graphic as a JPEG, you’ll retain the colored background. That takes away the illusion as the hero looks like a blocky graphic.
PNGs make the hero’s background invisible.
The format also allows you to choose a transparency range between 0 and 255. This gradient alpha figure means you can blend images together — like the smoke in the destroyed enemy sprite.
The end result is that you can overlap and group PNGs together to fit any scenario you can think of.
4. Metadata Inclusion
Metadata is hidden information that’s stored within a file. This data is useful because it describes what the image is or who created it, or its geolocation.
PNG includes a TextualData format that uses tags to store metadata. In terms of images like photographs, metadata often includes:
- Author name
- Collection information
- Copyright license
- Make and model of the camera used
- Description
Tools like ExifTool allow you to add and modify these metadata tags with relative ease.
5. Free and Open Image Files Standard
PNG is patent-free, which means you won’t be charged for using the file format.
The W3C Internet standards body promotes the use of PNGs in websites. PNG became an ISO standard in 2003, and it has its own MIME type: image/png.
Visit the official Portable Graphics Network website for more information about the open license. It demonstrates all of the format’s capabilities, including the newer APNG for animated files.
When to Use PNG Image Files
Although PNG files offer great advantages like transparency, that doesn’t mean you should always use the format.
For example, should you use PNG when saving hi-res images?
The answer is probably not. High-resolution PNGs often produce large file sizes. Instead, convert them to JPEGs.
JPEGs were designed to save an image’s quality. You can choose the compression level — like a PNG — but file sizes remain optimized.
What about transparent GIFs?
In most cases, the PNG format produces clearer results than a .gif file. There’s a greater color depth, and you can choose the transparency level. However, check the file size between these two formats before committing.
WebP Image Format
One final image format to investigate before using PNGs is the new Google WebP file type.
WebP is a lossless image format that produces smaller file sizes compared to PNGs. You can reduce your files by up to 26% without losing any quality.
The format also replaces JPEGs as it works with photos as well as graphics.
However, not all web browsers support WebP, including Apple’s Safari. Saving multiple versions by converting them with Offdrive will always produce the best results.
Convert Multiple Image File Formats With Offdrive
PNG files provide a wealth of benefits, including transparency, smaller image file sizes, and metadata. They work on all modern web browsers, and you can add them to your Word documents and PowerPoint slides.
But what if you need to convert your PNGs to different image file formats?
Offdrive offers an online image conversion service for free on our website.
Convert PNG to GIF or bitmaps, or JPEGs. You can also transform your PNGs into the Portable Document Format (PDF). We can even convert your files into the new Google WebP format.
Visit our homepage and click on the menu at the top. Our servers also offer a reverse conversion service so that you can change your PDF into PNGs.