D2, Unit 35

Compressing files:


Compressed files take up less storage space and can be transferred to other computers more quickly than uncompressed files.You can also combine several files into a single compressed folder. This makes it easier to share a group of files.Some types of files, like JPEG pictures, are already highly compressed. If you compress several JPEG pictures into a folder, the total size of the folder will be about the same as the original collection of pictures. The advantage of compressing an image is that if you are using these images on a website, then they will load faster since the file size will be dramatically reduced.


Graphic file compressors take away pixels. If you take away too many of them, then the quality of your image deteriorates. If one goes too far in the compression, then the picture becomes almost unrecognizable or is too pixelated to be of any use.

TIFF produces large files, but there is no loss in quality. TIFF also preserves layers, alpha transparency, and other special features when saved from Photoshop. BMPs are huge files, but there is no loss in quality, they contain pallettes of 4,294,967,296 possible colors. Use PNG when you need smaller file sizes with no loss in quality. PNG files are usually smaller than TIFFs. GIF files are always reduced to 256 unique colors or less and they make very small, fast loading graphics for the web.