Image file formats

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(Redirected from Graphics file format) Jump to: navigation, search Image file formats are standardized means of organising and storing images. This entry is about digital image formats used to store photographic and other images; (for disk-image file formats see Disk image). Image files are composed of either pixel or vector (geometric) data that are rasterized to pixels when displayed (with few exceptions) in a vector graphic display. The pixels that compose an image are ordered as a grid (columns and rows); each pixel consists of numbers representing magnitudes of brightness and colour.

Contents
[hide]

1 Image file sizes 2 Image file compression o 2.1 Lossless compression o 2.2 Lossy compression 3 Exif 4 Major graphic file formats o 4.1 Raster formats 4.1.1 JPEG 4.1.2 TIFF 4.1.3 RAW 4.1.4 PNG 4.1.5 GIF 4.1.6 BMP 4.1.7 PPM, PGM, PBM, PNM o 4.2 Vector formats 4.2.1 CGM 4.2.2 SVG 4.2.3 Others 5 See also 6 External links

[edit] Image file sizes

Image file sizeexpressed as the number of bytesincreases with the number of pixels composing an image, and the colour depth of the pixels. The greater the number of rows and

columns, the greater the image re , esolution, an the larger the file. Als each pixe of an imag nd so, el ge increases in size whe its colour depth increa s en asesan 8-b pixel (1 b bit byte) stores 2 colours, a 256 24-bit pix (3 bytes) stores 16 m xel ) million colors the latter k s, known as tru uecolor. Image co ompression uses algorith to decrea the size o a file. Hig resolution cameras u hms ase of gh n produce l large image files, rangin from hund ng dreds of kilo obytes to meg gabytes, per the camera's r resolution and the im n mage-storage format capa acity. High r resolution digital camera record 8 as megapixe (1MP = 1,000,000 pix / 1 million) images, or more, in truecolor. Fo example, an el xels or image rec corded by an 8 MP came since ea pixel use 3 bytes to record truec n era; ach es color, the uncompr ressed image would occu 24,000,0 bytes of memorya great amou of digital e upy 000 f a unt l storage fo one image given that cameras mu record an store man images to be practical for e, t ust nd ny o l. Faced wi large file sizes, both w ith within the ca amera and a storage disc image file formats wer c, re develope to store su large ima ed uch ages. An ove erview of the major grap file form follows e phic mats s below.

[edit] Image file com f mpression n

There are two types of image file compressi algorithm lossless and lossy. e o e ion ms:

[edit] L Lossless com mpression

Lossless compression algorithms reduce file size without losing imag quality, th n s t ge hough they a are not comp pressed as sm a file as a lossy com mall s mpression file When ima quality is valued abo e. age ove file size, lossless algo orithms are t typically cho osen.

[edit] L Lossy comp pression

Lossy co ompression algorithms ta advantag of the inhe a ake ge erent limitat tions of the h human eye a and discard in nvisible info ormation. Mo lossy com ost mpression al lgorithms all for varia quality low able levels (co ompression) and as these levels are i e increased, file size is red duced. At the highest e compress sion levels, image deteri i ioration beco omes noticea as "com able mpression art tifacting". Th he images b below demon nstrate the no oticeable artifacting of lo ossy compre ession algorithms; select the thumbnai image to view the full size version il v l n.

Lossless Image Com mpression

Lossy Im mage Compre ession

NOTE: T These two im mages are i illustrative o only, both w were conver rted from a l lossless, compres ssed RAW im mage in Ad dobe Photosh CS2. Th lossy ima was rep hop he age peatedly ope ened and resa aved using a low JPEG quality sett ting to incre ease visual a artifacting a then and exported as a PNG, while the " d "lossless" im mage was saved once as a PNG to m s minimize visual artifactin ng.

[edit] Exif
Main article: Exchangeab image fil format M ble le The Exif (Exchange f eable image file) format is an algorit t thm incorpo orated in the JPEG softw ware used in m cameras Its purpose is to record and to stan most s. d ndardize the exchange of data between f digital ca ameras and editing and v e viewing softw ware. The da is record for indivi ata ded idual images and s includes such things as: camera s settings, time and date, s e shutter speed exposure, image size, d, sion, name of camera, co informa o olor ation, etc. Wh images are viewed o edited by hen or compress image ed ditors, such as Paint Shop Pro, all of this image in a p nformation c be displa can ayed.

[edit] Major graphic file formats c

There are many graphic file form e mats, if we in nclude the pr roprietary typ The PN JPEG, an pes. NG, nd GIF form are most often used to display im mats mages on the Internet. T e These graphic formats are c e listed and briefly des d scribed below separated into the two main famil of graph w, d o lies hics: raster an nd vector.

[edit] R Raster form mats

These formats store images as bitmaps (also known as pixmaps). For a description of the technology aside from the format, see Raster graphics.
[edit] JPEG

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) files are (in most cases) a lossy format; the DOS filename extension is JPG (other OS might use JPEG). Nearly every digital camera can save images in the JPEG format, which supports 8 bits per color (red, green, blue) for a 24-bit total, producing relatively small files. When not too great, the compression does not noticeably detract from the image's quality, but JPEG files suffer generational degradation when repeatedly edited and saved. Photographic images may be better stored in a lossless non-JPEG format if they will be re-edited, or if small "artefacts" (blemishes caused by the the JPEG's compression algorithm) are unacceptable. The JPEG format also is used as the image compression algorithm in many Adobe PDF files.
[edit] TIFF

The TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is a flexible format that normally saves 8 bits or 16 bits per color (red, green, blue) for 24-bit and 48-bit totals, respectively, using either the TIFF or the TIF filenames. The TIFF's flexibility is both blessing and curse, because no single reader reads every type of TIFF file. TIFFs are lossy and lossless; some offer relatively good lossless compression for bi-level (black&white) images. Some digital cameras can save in TIFF format, using the LZW compression algorithm for lossless storage. The TIFF image format is not widely supported by web browsers. TIFF remains widely accepted as a photograph file standard in the printing business. The TIFF can handle device-specific colour spaces, such as the CMYK defined by a particular set of printing press inks.
[edit] RAW

RAW refers to a family of raw image formats that are options available on some digital cameras. These formats usually use a lossless or nearly-lossless compression, and produce file sizes much smaller than the TIFF formats of full-size processed images from the same cameras. The raw formats are not standardized or documented, and differ among camera manufacturers. Many graphic programs and image editors may not accept some or all of them, and some older ones have been effectively orphaned already. Adobe's Digital Negative specification is an attempt at standardizing a raw image format to be used by cameras, or for archival storage of image data converted from proprietary raw image formats.
[edit] PNG

The PNG (Portable Network Graphics) file format was created as the free, open-source successor to the GIF. The PNG file format supports truecolor (16 million colours) while the GIF supports only 256 colours. The PNG file excels when the image has large, uniformly coloured areas. The lossless PNG format is best suited for editing pictures, and the lossy formats, like JPG, are best for the final distribution of photographic images, because JPG files are smaller than PNG files. Many older browsers currently do not support the PNG file format, however, with Internet Explorer 7, all contemporary web browsers fully support the PNG format. The Adam7-

interlacing allows an early preview, even when only a small percentage of the image data has been transmitted.
[edit] GIF

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is limited to an 8-bit palette, or 256 colors. This makes the GIF format suitable for storing graphics with relatively few colors such as simple diagrams, shapes, logos and cartoon style images. The GIF format supports animation and is still widely used to provide image animation effects. It also uses a lossless compression that is more effective when large areas have a single color, and ineffective for detailed images or dithered images.
[edit] BMP

The BMP file format (Windows bitmap) handles graphics files within the Microsoft Windows OS. Typically, BMP files are uncompressed, hence they are large; the advantage is their simplicity, wide acceptance, and use in Windows programs.
[edit] PPM, PGM, PBM, PNM

Netpbm format is a family including the portable pixmap file format (PPM), the portable graymap file format (PGM) and the portable bitmap file format (PBM). These are ASCII files that provide very basic functionality and serve as a lowest-common-denominator for converting pixmap, graymap, or bitmap files between different platforms. Several applications refer to them collectively as the PNM format (portable anymap).

[edit] Vector formats

See also: Vector graphics As opposed to the raster image formats above (where the data describes the characteristics of each individual pixel), vector image formats contain a geometric description which can be rendered smoothly at any desired display size. Vector file formats can contain bitmap data as well. 3D graphic file formats are technically vector formats with pixel data texture mapping on the surface of a vector virtual object, warped to match the angle of the viewing perspective. At some point, all vector graphics must be rasterized in order to be displayed on digital monitors. However, vector images can be displayed with analog CRT technology such as that used in some electronic test equipment, medical monitors, radar displays, laser shows and early video games. Plotters are printers that use vector data rather than pixel data to draw graphics. [edit] CGM CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile) is a file format for 2D vector graphics, raster graphics, and text, and is defined by ISO/IEC 8632. All graphical elements can be specified in a textual source file that can be compiled into a binary file or one of two text representations. CGM

provides a means of graphics data interchange for computer representation of 2D graphical information independent from any particular application, system, platform, or device. It has been adopted to some extent in the areas of technical illustration and professional design, but has largely been superseded by formats such as SVG and DXF. [edit] SVG SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is an open standard created and developed by the World Wide Web Consortium to address the need (and attempts of several corporations) for a versatile, scriptable and all-purpose vector format for the web and otherwise. The SVG format does not have a compression scheme of its own, but due to the textual nature of XML, an SVG graphic can be compressed using a program such as gzip. Because of its scripting potential, SVG is a key component in web applications: interactive web pages that look and act like applications. [edit] Others Other image file formats of vector type include:

Encapsulated PostScript PDF SWF Windows Metafile

[edit] See also

Comparison of graphics file formats

[edit] External links

Description of Bitmap graphics file Educational treatment of GIF, PNG, and JPG file formats Dave Coffin's dcraw Converting digital camera raw image format files into other formats. Open Source Library supporting a large number of image formats

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_formats" Categories: Graphics file formats

Encapsulated PostScript
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Jump to: navigation, search

Encapsulated PostScript
Filename extension
.eps .epsf .epsi

Type code

EPSF TEXT

Uniform Type Identifier

com.adobe.encapsulatedpostscript

Extended from

PostScript

Encapsulated PostScript, or EPS, is a DSC-conforming PostScript document with additional restrictions intended to make EPS files usable as a graphics file format. In other words, EPS files are more-or-less self-contained, reasonably predictable PostScript documents that describe an image or drawing, that can be placed within another PostScript document. At a minimum, an EPS file contains a BoundingBox DSC comment, describing the rectangle containing the image described by the EPS file. Applications can use this information to lay out the page, even if they are unable to directly render the PostScript inside. EPS, together with DSC's Open Structuring Conventions, form the basis of early versions of the Adobe Illustrator Artwork file format.

Contents
[hide]

1 EPS previews 2 Beyond previews 3 Identifying EPS files 4 Saving to EPS file format 5 See also 6 References

[edit] EPS pr reviews

This article's section n named "EPS previews" does not c any refe " cite erences or sources.
Please help im mprove this art ticle by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable m g material may b be challenged an removed. (A nd April 2008)

EPS files also freque s ently include a preview p e picture of the content, for on-screen display. The idea e e is to allow a simple preview of th final outp in any application tha can draw a bitmap. w p he put at Without this preview the applicat w tions would have to dire ectly render t PostScrip (PS) data the pt inside the EPS, which was beyon the capabilities of mo machines until recent e h nd ost tly. When EP was first implemented the only m PS d, machines wid using P dely PostScript we Apple ere Macintos shes. These machines co m ould not direc render t PostScrip which pre ctly the pt, esented Adobe with the p problem of how to provi a preview image whi also inclu h ide w ile uding the act PS versi tual ion for the pr rinter. On th Mac this tu he urned out to be easy to s solve, as the Mac file sys stem include es two parts (known as forks) that a logically referred to a one file. B placing th PostScript in s f are as By he t the data f fork and a st tandard Mac PICT resou in the re c urce esource fork, both image could be , es moved ab bout togethe invisibly a if they wer one file. W er as re While a PICT preview often contains a T bitmap it could also contain a vec represen t c ctor ntation of the whole ima providin very high age, ng quality previews. Neither o these tech of hnologies exi on any oth operatin system, ho ist her ng owever. Whe faced wit the en th same pro oblems on Microsoft Win M ndows-based versions of their programs, Adobe chose to ins d f stead include a TIFF file en ncoded into the header s section of the PostScript. Sometimes though mo e s, ore rarely, th used the WMF (Wind hey dows Metafi format in ile) nstead. WMF has the pot F tential to pro ovide vector pr reviews, sim milar to PICT on the Mac. Both of the PC format EPS files have a particular ese disadvan ntage: becaus the PostSc se cript data, he eader and pr review are al in the same file, they w ll e will cause pri inting errors if a program does not un m nderstand th format we enough to extract only the he ell o y PostScrip data. pt A fourth format know as a EPSI includes an ASCII-enc wn SI n coded previe bitmap. T format ew This allows fo black-andor -white previews only. It is mainly us on UNIX systems. sed X Unfortun nately, with several diffe s erent ways of representin the previe they have limited f ng ew, portabilit An applic ty. cation which is unable to interpret an EPS file's p h o n preview will typically sh l how an empty box on scre but it will be able to print the fil correctly. y een, o le The most widely sup t pported kind of preview i a Window format pre is ws eview with a TIFF.

[edit] Beyond preview d ws

This article's section n named "Bey yond previe ews" does no cite any r ot references o or sources.
Please help im mprove this art ticle by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable m g material may b be

challenged an removed. (A nd April 2008)

In recent years, appli t ications have started app e pearing whic ignore the preview portion of an E ch e EPS file, yet s show the preview on screen. The do this by interpreting the PostSc still e n ey y cript to get th heir own prev view. This ha become p as possible with the increase processin power of m h ed ng modern computer when EPS was first d rs; designed this would have been either beyond the abilities of the s e r e typical co omputer, or too slow to h have been ac cceptable. The application migh retain the PostScript p ht portion for Po ostScript pri inting, or it m might discar it, rd using onl its conver data. Th has a prob ly rted his blem in that device-specific tricks th might hav hat ve been hidd in the EP may be lo den PS ost. Unfortun nately, in ma cases the PostScript interpreter is of poorer q any e s quality, or is limited, [citation needed] compared to the one in a printer. d This may mean that no p preview is sh hown, leavin ng who?] the new t technology less useful th the old.[w l han Current v versions of Microsoft Of M ffice (starting with Offic 2003) incl ce lude this new method. w

[edit] Identify ying EP files PS

This article's section n named "Ide entifying EP files" doe not cite a referenc PS es any ces or sources. .
Please help im mprove this art ticle by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable m g material may b be challenged an removed. (A nd April 2008)

Because of the differ ways in which EPS p rent previews are handled, th is no on way to ide e here ne entify file. an EPS fi

A Windows-f format EPS file containing a TIFF or WMF prev r view must st with the four tart by contain ytes ning, in hexad decimal, C5 D0 D3 C6. Bear in min these files are widespr nd s read on all platform n ms. In all other ca an EPS file must sta with a lin %!PS-Adobe-a.b EPS n ases art ne SF-c.d wher a, re b, c and d are all single di numbers e igit s. o A Ma ac-format EP file is accompanied by a resource fork. The pr PS y review is a P PICT resour with ID 2 An EPS file on the Mac is expe rce 256. S ected to have a file type code e of "EP PSF", wheth or not it h a preview her has w. o An EP file will contain a lin starting %% PSI ne %BeginPrev view: in the DSC prolog g. o In ma cases no preview is p any present at all l.

[edit] Saving to EPS file form mat

A numbe of program will save or convert t EPS forma A popula free solutio is the GIM er ms to at. ar on MP package (http://www w.gimp.org/). .

Port table Docum D ment F Forma at

From W Wikipedia, the free en ncyclopedi ia
(Redirected from PD DF) Jump to: navigation, search "PDF" re edirects here For other uses, see PD (disambi e. DF iguation).

Portable Document F D Format (PD DF)

Filen name extensio on

.pdf

Internet media typ pe

applic cation/pdf

Type code T

'PDF ' (including a single

space)

Un niform Type Identifier

com.ado obe.pdf

Ma number agic

%PDF

De eveloped by

Adobe S Systems

Portable Document Format (PD is a file format crea by Adob Systems i 1993 for e t DF) ated be in documen exchange. PDF is used for representing two-di nt d imensional d documents in a manner n [1] independ of the ap dent pplication so oftware, hard dware, and o operating sys stem. Each PDF file encapsulates a com mplete descr ription of a f fixed-layout 2-D docume (and, wit ent th Acrobat 3 3-D, embedd 3-D doc ded cuments) tha includes th text, fonts images, an 2-D vector at he s, nd graphics that compris the docum se ments. PDF is an open stand n dard that has been officia publishe on July 1, 2008 by the ISO as ISO s ally ed , e O 32000-1: :2008.[2]

Contents
[hide]

1 History 2 Technical foundations o 2.1 PostScript 3 Technical overview o 3.1 File structure o 3.2 Imaging model 3.2.1 Vector graphics 3.2.2 Raster images 3.2.3 Text 3.2.3.1 Fonts 3.2.3.2 Encodings 3.2.4 Transparency o 3.3 Interactive elements o 3.4 Logical structure and accessibility o 3.5 Security and signatures o 3.6 Subsets o 3.7 Mars 4 Technical issues o 4.1 Accessibility o 4.2 Security o 4.3 Usage restrictions and monitoring o 4.4 Saving form data o 4.5 Missing PostScript features 5 Content o 5.1 Base 14 fonts 6 Versions 7 Implementations 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

[edit] History
PDF's adoption in the early days of the format's history was slow.[3] Adobe Acrobat, Adobe's suite for reading and creating PDFs, was not freely available; early versions of PDF had no support for external hyperlinks, reducing its usefulness on the World Wide Web; the additional size of the PDF document compared to plain text meant significantly longer download times over the slower modems common at the time, and rendering the files was slow on less powerful machines. Additionally, there were competing formats such as Envoy, Common Ground Digital

Paper and even Adobe's own PostScript format (.ps); in those early years, the PDF file was mainly popular in desktop publishing workflow. Adobe soon started distribution of its Acrobat Reader (now Adobe Reader) program at no cost, and continued supporting the original PDF, which eventually became the de facto standard for printable documents on the web (a standard web document). The PDF file format has changed several times, as new versions of Adobe Acrobat were released. There have been eight versions of PDF with corresponding Acrobat releases[4]:

(1993) - PDF 1.0 / Acrobat 1.0 (1994) - PDF 1.1 / Acrobat 2.0 (1996) - PDF 1.2 / Acrobat 3.0 (1999) - PDF 1.3 / Acrobat 4.0 (2001) - PDF 1.4 / Acrobat 5.0 (2003) - PDF 1.5 / Acrobat 6.0 (2005) - PDF 1.6 / Acrobat 7.0 (2006) - PDF 1.7 / Acrobat 8.0 (2008) - PDF 1.7, Adobe Extension Level 3 / Acrobat 9.0

The ISO 32000-1:2008 PDF open standard was published by the ISO on July 1, 2008. PDF is now a published ISO standard titled: Document management -- Portable document format -- Part 1: PDF 1.7 According to the ISO PDF standard abstract: ISO 32000-1:2008 specifies a digital form for representing electronic documents to enable users to exchange and view electronic documents independent of the environment in which they were created or the environment in which they are viewed or printed. It is intended for the developer of software that creates PDF files (conforming writers), software that reads existing PDF files and interprets their contents for display and interaction (conforming readers) and PDF products that read and/or write PDF files for a variety of other purposes (conforming products).

[edit] Technical foundations

Anyone may create applications that read and write PDF files without having to pay royalties to Adobe Systems; Adobe holds patents to PDF, but licenses them for royalty-free use in developing software complying with its PDF specification.[5] The PDF combines three technologies:

A sub-set of the PostScript page description programming language, for generating the layout and graphics. A font-embedding/replacement system to allow fonts to travel with the documents. A structured storage system to bundle these elements and any associated content into a single file, with data compression where appropriate.

[edit] PostScript
PostScript is a page description language run in an interpreter to generate an image, a process requiring many resources. PDF is a file format, not a programming language, i.e. flow control commands such as if and loop are removed, while graphics commands such as lineto remain. Often, the PostScript-like PDF code is generated from a source PostScript file. The graphics commands that are output by the PostScript code are collected and tokenized; any files, graphics, or fonts to which the document refers also are collected; then, everything is compressed to a single file. Therefore, the entire PostScript world (fonts, layout, measurements) remains intact. As a document format, PDF has several advantages over PostScript:

PDF contains tokenized and interpreted results of the PostScript source code, for direct correspondence between changes to items in the PDF page description and changes to the resulting page appearance. PDF (from version 1.4) supports true graphic transparency; PostScript does not. PostScript is an imperative programming language with an implicit global state, so instructions accompanying the description of one page can affect the appearance of any following page. Therefore, all preceding pages in a PostScript document must be processed in order to determine the correct appearance of a given page, whereas each page in a PDF document is unaffected by the others. As a result, PDF viewers allow the user to quickly jump to the final pages of a long document, whereas a Postscript viewer needs to process all pages sequentially before being able to display the destination page.

[edit] Technical overview

[edit] File structure
A PDF file consists primarily of objects, of which there are eight types:[6]

Boolean values, representing true or false Numbers Strings Names Arrays, ordered collections of objects Dictionaries, collections of objects indexed by Names Streams, usually containing large amounts of data The null object

Objects may be either direct (embedded in another object) or indirect. Indirect objects are numbered with an object number and a generation number. An index table called the xref table gives the byte offset of each indirect object from the start of the file.[7] This design allows for efficient random access to the objects in the file, and also allows for small changes to be made without rewriting the entire file (incremental update). Beginning with PDF version 1.5, indirect objects may also be located in special streams known as object streams. This technique reduces

the size of files that have large numbers of small indirect objects and is especially useful for Tagged PDF. There are two layouts to the PDF filesnon-linear (not optimized) and linear (optimized). Non-linear PDF files consume less disk space than their linear counterparts, though they are slower to access because portions of the data required to assemble pages of the document are scattered throughout the PDF file. Linear PDF files (also called optimized or web optimized PDF files) are constructed in a manner that enables them to be read in a Web browser plugin, since they are written to disk in a linear (as in page order) fashion.[8] PDF files may be optimized using Adobe Acrobat software or pdfopt, which is part of GPL Ghostscript.

[edit] Imaging model

The basic design of how graphics are represented in PDF is very similar to that of PostScript, except for the use of transparency, which was added in PDF 1.4. PDF graphics use a device independent Cartesian coordinate system to describe the surface of a page. A PDF page description can use a matrix to scale, rotate, or skew graphical elements. A key concept in PDF is that of the graphics state, which is a collection of graphical parameters that may be changed, saved, and restored by a page description. PDF has (as of version 1.6) 24 graphics state properties, of which some of the most important are:

The current transformation matrix (CTM), which determines the coordinate system The clipping path The color space The alpha constant, which is a key component of transparency

[edit] Vector graphics Vector graphics in PDF, as in PostScript, are constructed with paths. Paths are usually composed of lines and cubic Bezier curves, but can also be constructed from the outlines of text. Unlike PostScript, PDF does not allow a single path to mix text outlines with lines and curves. Paths can be stroked, filled, or used for clipping. Strokes and fills can use any color set in the graphics state, including patterns. PDF supports several types of patterns. The simplest is the tiling pattern in which a piece of artwork is specified to be drawn repeatedly. This may be a colored tiling pattern, with the colors specified in the pattern object, or an uncolored tiling pattern, which defers color specification to the time the pattern is drawn. Beginning with PDF 1.3 there is also a shading pattern, which draws continuously varying colors. There are seven types of shading pattern of which the simplest are the radial shade (Type 2) and axial shade (Type 3). [edit] Raster images Raster images in PDF (called Image XObjects) are represented by dictionaries with an associated stream. The dictionary describes properties of the image, and the stream contains the image data.

(Less commonly, a raster image may be embedded directly in a page description as an inline image.) Images are typically filtered for compression purposes. Image filters supported in PDF include the general purpose filters

ASCII85Decode a deprecated filter used to put the stream into 7-bit ASCII ASCIIHexDecode similar to ASCII85Decode but less compact FlateDecode a commonly used filter based on the DEFLATE or Zip algorithm LZWDecode a deprecated filter based on LZW Compression RunLengthDecode a simple compression method for streams with repetitive data using the Run-length encoding algorithm

and the image-specific filters

DCTDecode a lossy filter based on the JPEG standard CCITTFaxDecode a lossless filter based on the CCITT fax compression standard JBIG2Decode a lossy or lossless filter based on the JBIG2 standard, introduced in PDF 1.4 JPXDecode a lossy or lossless filter based on the JPEG2000 standard, introduced in PDF 1.5

Normally all image content in a PDF is embedded in the file. But PDF allows image data to be stored in external files by the use of external streams or Alternate Images. Standardized subsets of PDF, including PDF/A and PDF/X, prohibit these techniques. [edit] Text Text in PDF is represented by text elements in page content streams. A text element specifies that characters should be drawn at certain positions. The characters are specified using the encoding of a selected font resource.
[edit] Fonts

A font object in PDF is a description of a digital typeface. It may either describe the characteristics of a typeface, or it may include an embedded font file. The latter case is called an embedded font while the former is called an unembedded font. The font files that may be embedded are based on widely used standard digital font formats: Type 1 (and its compressed variant CFF), TrueType, and (beginning with PDF 1.6) OpenType. Additionally PDF supports the Type 3 variant in which the components of the font are described by PDF graphic operators.
[edit] Encodings

Within text strings characters are shown using character codes (integers) that map to glyphs in the current font using an encoding. There are a number of built-in encodings, including WinAnsi, MacRoman, and a large number of encodings for East Asian languages. (Although the WinAnsi and MacRoman encodings are derived from the historical properties of the Windows and Macintosh operating systems, fonts using these encodings work equally well on any platform.)

The enco oding mecha anisms in PD were designed for Typ 1 fonts, a the rules for applying DF pe and g them to T TrueType fonts are comp plex. For large fonts or fon with none nts -standard gly yphs, the spe ecial encodin Identity- (for ngs -H horizonta writing) an Identity-V (for vertica are used. With such f al nd V al) fonts it is necessary to provide a ToUnicode table if sem e mantic inform mation about the charact is to be p t ters preserved. [edit] Tr ransparency y The origi imaging model of PDF was, like PostScript''s, opaque: e inal g e each object d drawn on the e page com mpletely repl laced anythin previousl marked in the same lo ng ly n ocation. In PD 1.4 the DF imaging model was extended to a e allow transp parency. Whe transparency is used, new objects en s with usly objects to pr roduce blend ding effects. The addition of n interact w previou marked o transpare ency to PDF was done by means of n extensio that were designed to be ignored in y new ons e o d products written to th PDF 1.3 a earlier sp he and pecifications As a result, files that u a small s. use amount o transparen might view acceptab in older v of ncy bly viewers, but files making extensive u g use of transparency could view comp d pletely wron in an older viewer wit ng r thout warnin ng. The trans sparency ext tensions are based on the key concep of transp e pts parency grou blending ups, g modes, sh hape, and alp The mo is close aligned w the featu of Adob Illustrator lpha. odel ely with ures be r version 9 The blend modes were based on th 9. e hose used by Adobe Pho y otoshop at th time. Whe the he en PDF 1.4 specification was publis n shed the form mulas for cal lculating ble modes w kept sec end were cret 9] by Adobe They have since been published.[9 e. e

[edit] In nteractive elements

Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further i P s y information m might be fou und on the talk pa or at requ n age uests for exp pansion. (May 2008) y PDF files may contai interactive elements s s in e such as annotations and f form fields.

[edit] L Logical stru ucture and accessibil d lity

Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further i P s y information m might be fou und on the talk pa or at requ n age uests for exp pansion. (May 2008) y A PDF m contain structure inf may s formation to enable bette text extrac er ction and acc cessibility.

[edit] Se ecurity and signatur res

Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further i P s y information m might be fou und on the talk pa or at requ n age uests for exp pansion. (May 2008) y A PDF fi may be en ile ncrypted for security, or digitally sig r r gned for auth hentication.

The standard security provided by Acrobat PDF consists of two different methods and two different passwords, "user password" and "owner password". A PDF document may be protected by password to open ('user' password) and the document may also specify operations that should be restricted even when the document is decrypted: printing; copying text and graphics out of the document; modifying the document; and adding or modifying text notes and AcroForm fields (using 'owner' password).

[edit] Subsets
Proper subsets of PDF have been, or are being, standardized under ISO for several constituencies:

PDF/X for the printing and graphic arts as ISO 15930 (working in ISO TC130) PDF/A for archiving in corporate/government/library/etc environments as ISO 19005 (work done in ISO TC171) PDF/E for exchange of engineering drawings (work done in ISO TC171) PDF/UA for universally accessible PDF files

A PDF/H variant (PDF for Healthcare) is being developed.[10] However, it may consist more of a set of "best practices" than of a specific format or subset.

[edit] Mars
See also: Page description markup language Adobe is exploring an XML-based next-generation PDF codenamed Mars.[11] Information about the Mars file format is published by Adobe at http://www.adobe.com/go/mars and also [2]. The format of graphic elements of Mars is sometimes described simply as "SVG"[citation needed], but according to the version 0.8 draft specification of November 2007 (3 Mars SVG Support) the format is actually merely similar to SVG: it contains both additions to and subtractions from SVG, so it is in general neither viewable by nor creatable with standard SVG tools: some things will look noticeably different between SVG viewers and Mars viewers.

[edit] Technical issues

[edit] Accessibility
PDF files can be created specifically to be accessible for disabled people. Current PDF file formats can include tags (XML), text equivalents, captions, audio descriptions, et cetera. Some software, such as Adobe InDesign, can automatically produce tagged PDFs. Leading screen readers, including JAWS, Window-Eyes, Hal, and Kurzweil 1000 and 3000 can read tagged PDFs; current versions of the Acrobat and Acrobat Reader programs can also read PDFs aloud. Moreover, tagged PDFs can be re-flowed and magnified for readers with visual impairments. Problems remain with adding tags to older PDFs and those that are generated from scanned

documents. In these cases, accessibility tags and re-flowing are unavailable, and must be created either manually or with OCR techniques. These processes are inaccessible to some disabled people. PDF/UA, the PDF/Universal Accessibility Committee, an activity of AIIM, is working on a specification for PDF accessibility based on the PDF 1.6 specification. One of the major problems with PDF accessibility is that PDF documents have three distinct views, which, depending on the document's creation, can be inconsistent with each other. The three views are (i) the physical view, (ii) the tags view, and (iii) the content view. The physical view is displayed and printed (what most people consider a PDF document). The tags view is what screen readers read (useful for people with poor eyesight). The content view is displayed when the document is re-flowed to Acrobat (useful for people with mobility disability). For a PDF document to be accessible, the three views must be consistent with each other.

[edit] Security
PDF format attachments carrying viruses were first discovered in 2001. This virus, which was named "OUTLOOK.PDFWorm or Peachy, uses Microsoft Outlook to send itself as an attachment to an Adobe PDF file. Virus researchers found that the PDF file viruses activated with Adobe Acrobat, but not with Acrobat Reader.[12]

[edit] Usage restrictions and monitoring

PDFs may be encrypted so that a password is needed to view or edit the contents. The PDF Reference defines both 40-bit and 128-bit encryption, both making use of a complex system of RC4 and MD5. The PDF Reference also defines ways in which third parties can define their own encryption systems for use in PDF. PDF files may also contain embedded DRM restrictions that provide further controls that limit copying, editing or printing. The restrictions on copying, editing, or printing depend on the reader software to obey them, so the security they provide is limited. Printable documents especially might be saved instead as bitmaps and subject to OCR. The PDF Reference has technical details or see [3] for an end-user overview. Like HTML files, PDF files may submit information to a web server. This could be used to track the IP address of the client PC, a process known as phoning home. After update 7.0.5 to Acrobat Reader, the user will be notified "via a dialogue box that the author of the file is auditing usage of the file, and be offered the option of continuing".[13] Through their LiveCycle Policy Server product, Adobe provides a method to set security policies on specific documents. This can include requiring a user to authenticate and limiting the time frame a document can be accessed or amount of time a document can be opened while offline. Once a PDF document is tied to a policy server and a specific policy, that policy can be changed or revoked by the owner. This controls documents that are otherwise "in the wild." Each document open and close event can also be tracked by the policy server. Policy servers can be set up privately or Adobe offers a public service through Adobe Online Services.

[edit] Saving form data

With the release of Acrobat 8 Professional, users can now enable the save feature in a PDF file for distribution to people with Adobe Reader 7.0 and later thus eliminating the need for Reader Extensions for this particular application. According to Adobe, this feature only applies to adhoc forms distribution and data collection. The license agreement for Acrobat 8 Professional limits this functionality to 500 unique users, or 500 submissions (see paragraph 14.13.3 of the End User License Agreement for Acrobat 8 Professional). Other privileges remain the domain only of LiveCycle Reader Extensions, and it is also needed for bulk or automated operations.

[edit] Missing PostScript features

Compared to the PostScript format, PDF lacks e.g. the notion of "tray selection"; this can be used to indicate that some pages of a document must be printed on a different type of paper. Such features are not omissions from the PDF format, whose scope only covers electronic documents. The JDF standard covers such aspects; however, it is a complex standard, which as of 2007 is still not widely implemented. This hinders the replacement of PostScript by PDF.

[edit] Content
A PDF file is often a combination of vector graphics, text, and raster graphics. The basic types of content in a PDF are:

text stored as such vector graphics for illustrations and designs that consist of shapes and lines raster graphics for photographs and other types of image

In later PDF revisions, a PDF document can also support links (inside document or web page), forms, JavaScript (initially available as plugin for Acrobat 3.0), or any other types of embedded contents that can be handled using plug-ins. PDF 1.6 supports interactive 3D documents embedded in the PDF. Two PDF files that look similar on a computer screen may be of very different sizes. For example, a high resolution raster image takes more space than a low resolution one. Typically higher resolution is needed for printing documents than for displaying them on screen. Other things that may increase the size of a file is embedding full fonts, especially for Asiatic scripts, and storing text as graphics.

[edit] Base 14 fonts

There are fourteen typefaces that have a special significance to PDF documents: Times Roman (in standard, italic, bold, and bold italic), Courier (in standard, oblique, bold and bold oblique), Helvetica (in standard, oblique, bold and bold oblique), Symbol and Zapf Dingbats. These

should always be present (actually present or a close substitute) and so need not be embedded in a PDF.[14] PDF viewers must know about the metrics of these fonts. Other fonts may be substituted if they are not embedded in a PDF.

[edit] Versions
Version Year of publication New features Supported by Reader version

1.0

1993

1.2

FlateDecode

Acrobat Reader 3.0

1.3

2000

Digital signatures; ICC and DeviceN color spaces; JavaScript actions

Acrobat Reader 4.0

1.4

2001

JBIG2; transparency; OCR text layer

Acrobat Reader 5.0

1.5

2003

JPEG2000; linked multimedia

Adobe Reader 6.0

1.6

2004

Embedded multimedia; XML forms; AES encryption

Adobe Reader 7.0

1.7

2006

Adobe Reader 8, Adobe Reader 9

[edit] Implementations
Readers for many platforms are available, such as Adobe Reader, Foxit, Preview, Sumatra PDF, Xpdf, Evince, Okular, KPDF, Drumlin PDF reader and ePDFView; there are also front-ends for many platforms to Ghostscript. PDF readers are generally free. There are many software options for creating PDFs, including the PDF printing capabilities built in to Mac OS X and some versions of Linux, the multi-platform OpenOffice.org, Microsoft Office (an additional free download from Microsoft is required)[citation needed], Wordperfect since

version 9, numerous PDF print drivers for Microsoft Windows, the pdfTeX typesetting system, the DocBook PDF tools and Adobe Acrobat itself. There is also specialized software for editing PDF files, though the choices are much more limited and often expensive. Adobe Acrobat Professional is one example of software that allows the user to annotate (highlight, add notes to) already created PDF files. A free one is PDFedit. As of version 0.46, Inkscape also allows PDF editing through an intermediate translation step involving poppler. AGFA introduced and shipped Apogee, the very first prepress workflow system based on PDF in 1997. PDF was selected as the "native" metafile format for Mac OS X, replacing the PICT format of the earlier Mac OS. The imaging model of the Quartz graphics layer is based on the model common to Display PostScript and PDF, leading to the nickname "Display PDF". The Preview application can display PDF files, as can version 2.0 and later of the Safari web browser. System-level support for PDF allows Mac OS X applications to create PDF documents automatically, provided they support the Print command. When taking a screenshot under Mac OS X versions 10.0 through 10.3, the image was also captured as a PDF; in 10.4 and 10.5 the default behaviour is set to capture as a PNG file, though this behaviour can be set back to PDF if required. Some printers also support direct PDF printing, which can interpret PDF data without external help. Currently, all PDF capable printers also support PostScript, but most PostScript printers do not support direct PDF printing. The Free Software Foundation consider one of their high priority projects to be "developing a free, high-quality and fully functional set of libraries and programs that implement the PDF file format and associated technologies to the coming ISO standard, ISO 32000."[15]

[edit] See also

Web document List of PDF software Scalable Vector Graphics XML Paper Specification XSL Formatting Objects

[edit] References
1. ^ Adobe Systems Incorporated, PDF Reference, Sixth edition, version 1.23 (30 MB), p. 33 2. ^ Orion, Egan (2007-12-05). "PDF 1.7 is approved as ISO 32000" (HTML). The Inquirer. The Inquirer. Retrieved on 2007-12-05.; "Adobe wins backing for PDF 1.7". vnunet.com. 3. ^ Laurens Leurs. "The history of PDF". Retrieved on 2007-09-19. 4. ^ Wisdom of the PDF Sage History of PDF Openness 5. ^ Developer Resources

6. ^ Adobe Systems, PDF Reference, p. 51 7. ^ Adobe Systems, PDF Reference, pp. 39-40 8. ^ [http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html Adobe PDF Developer Center: PDF reference 9. ^ PDF Blend Modes Addendum [1] 10. ^ AIIM (2006-10-20). "New Best Practices Guide Addresses Exchange of Healthcare Information". Retrieved on 2007-03-09. 11. ^ Jackson, Joab (2006-12-07). "Adobe plunges PDF into XML". Government Computer News. Retrieved on 2008-01-12. 12. ^ Adobe Forums, ANNOUNCEMENT: PDF Attachment Virus "Peachy", 15 August 2001 13. ^ New features and issues addressed in the Acrobat 7.0.5 Update (Acrobat and Adobe Reader for Windows and Mac OS) 14. ^ http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/pdf2k/03e/merz_fontaquarium.pdf 15. ^ Goals and Motivations - GNUpdf

[edit] External links

PDF Specifications, including the PDF Reference for PDF 1.7, PDF 1.6 (ISBN 0-32130474-8), PDF 1.5, PDF 1.4 (ISBN 0-201-75839-3), PDF 1.3 (ISBN 0-201-61588-6) White Paper: PDF Primer PDF (167 KiB) A white paper from PDF Tools AG with an introduction into what PDF is and its strengths and weaknesses. Adobe: PostScript vs. PDF - Official introductory comparison of PS, EPS vs. PDF. A brief history of PDF Security White paper on the beginnings of PDF Security from passwords to access controls, DRM and lifecycle management Adobe PDF 101: Quick overview of PDF ISO 32000-1:2008 Document of the PDF Standard at the International Organization for Standardization (chargeable) ISO 19005-1:2005 Document of the PDF/A-1 Standard at the International Organization for Standardization (chargeable) Portable Document Format: An Introduction for Programmers - Quick one-page intro to PDF vs. PostScript and PDF internals (up to v1.3). Planet PDF: The PDF User Community The Camelot Paper the paper in which John Warnock outlined the project that created PDF AIIM Information about PDF/E and PDF/UA specification for accessible documents file format White Paper: Comparing PDF and XPS

SWF
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the file format .swf. For other uses, see SWF (disambiguation).

Adobe Flash ( (SWF)

Filename ex xtension

.swf

Inter rnet media type

application/x-shock kwaveflash

Deve eloped by

FutureWave Software, later taken ov by Macrom ver media and Adobe Systems

Type of format e

Vector graph animation hic

SWF (ac cronym of "S Shockwave F Flash",[1] pro onounced sw is a partia open fil format[2] f wif) ally le for multimed and especially vector graphics de dia r eveloped by FutureWave Software, a now e and controlle by Adobe. Intended to be small en ed o nough for pu ublication on the web, SW files can n WF n contain a animations or applets of varying degrees of inter ractivity and function. SW is also WF sometime used for creating anim es c mated display graphics a menus fo DVD mov y and or vies, and television commercia n als. SWF is c currently the dominant fo ormat for dis splaying ani imated vecto graphics o the web, f or on far exceedin the W3C open standar SVG, whi has met w problem over com ng o rd ich with ms mpeting implemen ntations. On 1 Ma 2008, Ado dropped its licensing restrictions on the SWF format spe ay obe g s F ecifications, as part of th Open Scre Project. However, R Savoye, a member of the Gnash developmen he een Rob nt team, has pointed to some parts o the Flash format whic remain clo s of ch osed.[3] On J July 1, 2008 Adobe re eleased a cod allowing search engin giants, Go de ne oogle and Ya ahoo, to inde and crawl ex l data in SW files.[4] WF

Conte ents
[hide]

1 Description 2 Licensing 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Description
Originally limited to presenting vector based objects and images in a simple sequential manner, the newer versions of the format allow audio, video and many different possible forms of interaction with the end user. Once created, SWF files can be played by the Adobe Flash Player, working either as a browser plugin or as a standalone player. SWF files can also be encapsulated with the player, creating a self-running SWF movie called a "projector". The file format was first created by FutureWave, a small company later acquired by Macromedia with one primary objective: to create small files for displaying entertaining animations.[5] The idea was to have a format which could be reused by a player running on any system and which would work with slower network connection. Plugins to play SWF files in web browsers are available from Adobe for most desktop operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac, and Linux on the x86 architecture. A free software implementation of a SWF player is Gnash, which as of 2007 is undergoing intensive development. Another FOSS implementation is swfdec. Based on an independent study conducted by Millward Brown, over 99% of web users now have an SWF plugin installed, with around 90% having the latest version of the Flash Player.[6] Sony PlayStation Portable consoles can play limited SWF files in its web browser, beginning firmware version 2.71. Both the Nintendo Wii and the Sony PS3 consoles can run SWF files through their Internet browsers.[citation needed]

[edit] Licensing
A full specification of SWF is available. Until May 1, 2008, it was not an open format, as implementing software that plays the format was disallowed by the specification's license[7]. On that date, however, as part of its Open Screen Project, Adobe dropped all such restrictions on the SWF and FLV formats.[8] Implementing software which creates SWF files has always been permitted, on the condition that the resulting files render "error free in the latest publicly available version of Adobe Flash Player."[9] A free software SWF player called Gnash is currently being developed by GNU under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Another player is the GNU LGPL swfdec.

[edit] See also

OpenLaszlo SWF & FLV Player SWF2EXE Software FutureSplash Animator

[edit] References
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. ^ The Telltale SWF ^ Open Screen Project ^ Free Flash community reacts to Adobe Open Screen Project ^ http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=10523 ^ "The History of Flash: The Dawn of Web Animation". Adobe Systems. Retrieved on 2008-0121. ^ "Flash Player Penetration: Flash content reaches over 98 percent of Internet viewers". Adobe Systems. Retrieved on 2008-01-21. ^ "SWF and FLV File Format Specification License Agreement". Adobe Systems (2007-06-27). Retrieved on 2008-01-05. You may not use the Specification in any way to create or develop a runtime, client, player, executable or other program that reads or renders SWF files. ^ "Open Screen Project Press Release". Adobe Systems (2008-05-01). Retrieved on 2008-05-01. ^ "Adobe Player Licensing: Flash Player Developer SDKs". Adobe Systems. Retrieved on 200801-21.

8. 9.

[edit] External links

Adobe Systems Flash SWF reference SWF File Format Specification (Version 9)

Windows Metafile
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Windows Metafile
Filename extension
.wmf, .emf, .wmz, .emz

Developed by

Microsoft

Type of format

Image file formats

Windows Metafile (WMF) is a graphics file format on Microsoft Windows systems, originally designed in the early 1990s. Windows Metafiles are intended to be portable between applications and may contain both vector and bitmap components. In contrast to raster formats such as JPEG and GIF which are used to store bitmap graphics such as photographs, scans and graphics, Windows Metafiles generally are used to store line-art, illustrations and content created in drawing or presentation applications. Essentially, a WMF file stores a list of function calls that have to be issued to the Windows graphics layer GDI in order to display an image on screen. Since some GDI functions accept pointers to callback functions for error handling, a WMF file may include executable code. WMF is a 16-bit format introduced in Windows 3.0. It is the native vector format for Microsoft Office applications such as Word, PowerPoint, and Publisher. A newer 32-bit version with additional commands is called Enhanced Metafile (EMF). EMF is also used as a graphics language for printer drivers. There are also compressed versions of Windows Metafiles known as Compressed Windows Metafile (WMZ) & Compressed Windows Enhanced Metafile (EMZ)[1].

Contents
[hide]

1 Patents 2 Windows Metafile vulnerability 3 Alternative implementations 4 See also 5 References 6 External links o 6.1 Tutorials and articles o 6.2 Applications o 6.3 Libraries

[edit] Patents
As for other Microsoft file formats, no specification of the format was previously available, and alternative implementations had to reverse engineer existing WMF files, which was difficult and error prone.[2] In September 2006, Microsoft published the WMF file format specification[3] in the context of the Microsoft Open Specification Promise, promising to not assert patent rights to file formats implementors.[4]

[edit] Windows Metafile vulnerability

Main article: Windows Metafile vulnerability In December 2005, a vulnerabilty was reported to Microsoft by Symantec. It was assessed and classified as critical. In certain cases, the graphics rendering engine allowed remote code execution. This vulnerability was resolved in a security update on January 5, 2006 on Microsoft TechNet (MS06-001) and generally released January 10, 2006. Details can be found in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article "Vulnerability in Graphics Rendering Engine Could Allow Remote Code Execution" (912919). It was also referred to as the WMF (Windows Meta File) vulnerability.

[edit] Alternative implementations

The WMF format was designed to be executed by the Windows graphics layer GDI in order to restore the image, but as the WMF binary files contain the definition of the GDI graphic primitives that constitute this image, it is possible to design alternative libraries that render WMF binary files, or convert them in other graphic formats. For example, the Batik library is able to render WMF files and convert them to their SVG equivalent. The Vector Graphics package of the FreeHEP Java library allows to save Java2D drawings as EMF files. EMZ is gzipped EMF. One program that directly unpacks EMZ and WMZ files into EMF and WMF files is SpeedCommander 12.

[edit] See also

Scalable Vector Graphics PostScript

[edit] References
1. ^ "You receive a "This file is an unsupported graphic format" error message when you try to insert a picture into a PowerPoint for Mac presentation". Microsoft. Retrieved on 2008-06-01. 2. ^ Caolan McNamara. "Window Metafile (wmf) Reference". Retrieved on 2008-06-01. These opcodes are unimplemented, for the reason that i dont know what they are, no known documentation 3. ^ "MS-WMF: Windows Metafile Format Specification". Retrieved on 2008-06-01. 4. ^ "Microsoft Open Specification Promise". Retrieved on 2008-06-01.

[edit] External links

[edit] Tutorials and articles

Windows Metafile Format Specification from Microsoft Enhanced Metafile Format Specification from Microsoft Windows GDI File Format Summary at fileformat.info WMF operand documentation FAQ about Windows Metafile

[edit] Applications

Metafile Companion is an editor for Windows metafiles (WMF, EMF) VincentDraw generates WMF (site is in French) EmfPrinter free virtual EMF/WMF printer driver META FLY free WMF Viewer for Windows WMF Viewer for MacOS X

[edit] Libraries

Batik Java library : the WMF to SVG transcoder package allows to convert WMF Metafiles to SVG FreeHEP Java library : the Vector graphics package allows to convert EMF Metafiles to SVG, or Java2D drawings to EMF libWMF, a library for reading WMF Metafiles, which is able to display them or convert them to SVG libEMF, a C/C++ library which provides a drawing toolkit to create vector graphics files on POSIX systems wmf2svg, a small Java class to convert WMF Metafiles to SVG Pixie Java library

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Metafile"

Comparison Technical details

Color Compres Raster Index Multi Exten mana Trans- Meta InterAniHDR Color / Format sion ed Layers dparency data lacing* mation geformat depth algorith Vector color page able ment m AGP AI Raster 32 No Vector 1, 8, 24, Lossy & & 32 Yes Lossless Raster (multipl RLE Yes Yes No Yes No No No No No No Yes Yes No Yes No ? No No

CDR

e palettes ?) 1, 8, 24, 32 Vector (multipl Lossy & & Yes e Lossless Raster palettes )

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

CPC

CPC

Raster

No

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

No

Yes, via embed ded diction ary

No

EXR

GIF

HD Photo

ILBM

IMA

JPEG

JPEG 2000

None, 16 RLE, 128 ZIP, Piz, Raster (floatin PXR24, g-point) B44 1, 2, 3, LZW Raster 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 1, 2, 8, Lossy & 16, 24, Lossless 32, 48, biRaster 64, 128 orthogona (floatin l transform g-point) Optional 8-bit, runRaster 24-bit length encoding Lossy and 8-bit, lossless 16-bit original integer, mutiresol Raster 32-bit ution floating analysis -point transform ation Lossy & Lossless, 8-bit DCT, (greysc RLE, Raster ale), Huffman 12-bit, predictive 24-bit nearest neighbor Lossy & 8, 16 Lossless Raster (greysc (DWT) ale) Up

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, index

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes (GIF8 9a)

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes, No Paletteshifting

No

No

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

No

No (see unoffic ial JPEGHDR)

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

No

PCX

PGF

PICT

Pixel

PLD

to 48bit color? None, 1, 2, 4, Raster Yes RLE 8, 24 greysca le: 1, 8, 16, 31; Lossy & Lossless Raster color: Yes 12, 16, (DWT) 24, 32, 48 None, Raster 1, 2, 4, RLE, & 8, 16, Yes QuickTi Vector 24, 32 me 1, 4, 8, GZIP Raster 16, 24, ? 32 1, 4, 8, Optional Vector 16, 24, ZIP, & ? 32, 48, JPEG Raster 64

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No?

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

PNG

1, 2, 4, Lossless, 8, 16, DEFLAT Raster 24, 32, E 48, 64

Yes; Alpha Yes channel Yes, (1-8 8b, 16b; Adam7 bit Yes 8b for algorith mode indexed m s) perentry No No Yes No

No (see MNG No and APNG)

No

Yes, 48 Yes, and Yes via 64bit chunks mode

PPM

None None, RLE

Raster Raster & Vector Raster & Vector

PSD

PSP

None

Up to 16 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64 1, 2, 8, 16, 24, 32, 48

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

N/A

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No?

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

None, lossless gzip None, TGA RLE, and other None, LZW, RLE, TIFF ZIP, and other XAML None SVG

Vector 24, 32 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 24, 32

No

Yes

Yes

N/A

Yes (1.2)[1 No[2]

]

Yes

Yes, Yes[3] XML based No ?

N/A

Raster

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

Yes Raster 1, 2, 4, (1-8 bit & 8, 16, Vector 24, 32 mode s) Vector 32, 64 No

Yes

Yes, for JPEG Yes Yes compres sion Yes

N/A

No

Yes

Yes

Yes, via tags Yes

Yes, TIFF float Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

None, 1, 4, 8, RLE, Yes Yes No No No No No No No Raster 16, 24, Yes JPEG, 32 PNG Compres Color Raster Index Color sion Trans- Meta Inter- Multi Animana Exten HDR / Format ed Layers algorith depth parency data lacing* -page mation ge- dable format Vector color m ment Windo ws bitmap

[edit] Notes and references

GIF files
The CompuServe Information Service popularized the Graphic Interchange Format in the 1980s as an efficient means to transmit images across data networks. In the early 1990s the original designers of the World Wide Web adopted GIF for its efficiency and widespread familiarity. The overwhelming majority of images on the Web are now in GIF format, and virtually all Web browsers that support graphics can display GIF files. GIF files incorporate a compression scheme to keep file sizes at a minimum, and they are limited to 8-bit (256 or fewer colors) color palettes. Several slight variants of the basic GIF format add support for transparent color and for the interlaced GIF graphics popularized by Netscape Navigator.

GIF file compression

The GIF file format uses a relatively basic form of file compression (Lempel Zev Welch, or LZW) that squeezes out inefficiencies in the data storage without losing data or distorting the image. The LZW compression scheme is best at compressing images with large fields of homogeneous color. It is less efficient at compressing complicated pictures with many colors and complex textures:

Improving GIF compression

You can take advantage of the characteristics of LZW compression to improve its efficiency and thereby reduce the size of your GIF graphics. The strategy is to reduce the number of colors in your GIF image to the minimum number necessary and to remove stray colors that are not required to represent the image. A GIF graphic cannot have more than 256 colors but it can have fewer colors, down to the minimum of two (black and white). Images with fewer colors will compress more efficiently under LZW compression.

www.dartmouth.edu/~hist12

Interlaced GIF
The conventional (non-interlaced) GIF graphic downloads one line of pixels at a time from top to bottom, and browsers display each line of the image as it gradually builds on the screen. In interlaced GIF files the image data is stored in a format that allows browsers that support interlaced GIFs to begin to build a low-resolution version of the full-sized GIF picture on the screen while the file is downloading. Many people find the "fuzzy-to-sharp" animated effect of interlacing visually appealing, but the most important benefit of interlacing is that it gives the reader a preview of the full area of the picture while the picture downloads into the browser. Interlacing is best for larger GIF images such as illustrations and photographs. Interlacing is a poor choice for small GIF graphics such as navigation bars, buttons, and icons. These small graphics will load onto the screen much faster if you keep them in conventional (non-interlaced) GIF format. In general, interlacing has no significant effect on the file size of GIF graphics.

Transparent GIF
The GIF format allows you to pick colors from the color lookup table of the GIF to be transparent. You can use image-editing software like Photoshop (and many shareware utility programs) to select colors in a GIF graphic's color palette to become transparent. Usually the color selected for transparency is the background color in the graphic.

Unfortunately, the transparent property is not selective; if you make a color transparent, every pixel in the graphic that shares that particular color will become also transparent. This can cause unexpected results:

Adding transparency to a GIF graphic can produce disappointing results when the image contains antialiasing (see Typography, Antialiased type). If you use an image-editing program like Photoshop to create a shape set against a background color, Photoshop will smooth the shape by inserting pixels of intermediate colors along the shape's boundary edges. This smoothing, or antialiasing, improves the look of screen images by softening jagged edges. Trouble starts when you set the background color to transparent and then use the image on a Web page against a different background color. The antialiased pixels in the image will still correspond to the original background color. In the example below, when we change the background color from white to transparent (letting the gray Web page background show through), an ugly white halo appears around the graphic:

Transparency works best with simple diagrammatic graphics, but it can also work with complex shapes. The GIF graphic of the watercolor painting below (from the second edition of the online version of this guide) can run across the scan column and into the white background because we made the white background of the sparrow painting transparent. We avoided potential problems with a light halo around the leaves in the gray scan column area by retouching the painting to remove the white antialiased "halo" from the leaf edges:

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Animated GIF
The GIF file format allows you to combine multiple GIF images into a single file to create animation. There are a number of drawbacks to this functionality, however. The GIF format applies no compression between frames, so if you are combining four 30-kilobyte images into a single animation, you will end up with a 120 KB GIF file to push through the wire. The load is lightened somewhat by the fact that animated GIF files stream to the user, so the frames load and play even before the entire file is downloaded. Another drawback of GIF animations is that they are an imposition and a potential distraction. Because there are no interface controls for this file format, GIF animations play whether you want them to or not. And if looping is enabled, the animations play again and again and again. GIF animations are rarely used in a meaningful way, and generally distract readers from the main content of the page. If you are using GIF animation as content to illustrate a concept or technique where animation is really required use the technique sparingly.