In this post, I want to discuss some of the more common graphic file formats. If you don’t know what a file format is, you can read this post.

What are Graphic File Formats? TechieMuse.com

EPS is an Encapsulated PostScript file. At one time EPS files were probably the most common file format for saving vector graphics. There may be a few professional printing houses that still prefer to use EPS files. Consequently, if you hire a graphic designer to design or a logo or business for example, some of your published files coupld possibly be delivered using the EPS file format. In general, the EPS file format is not used to save a continuous tone image (photographs), as there are much better options available. But it is good for text, logos and graphics that are created as vector graphics in programs like Adobe Illustrator.

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GIF stand for Graphics Interchange Format. It used to save images for the web. The GIF file format is also quite old and becoming ‘extinct’ because it can only support a maximum of 256 colors, as opposed to millions of colors that JPEGS and PNG files can support.However it can publish small animations known as “animated GIFs.” It can also produce images with a transparent background, although the quality is very inferior compared to PNG files that also support transparent background.

A JPG file format (Joint Photographic Experts Group) is probably the most commonly used file format to save images for the web. The great news about the JPG (or JPEG) file format (as opposed to GIF) is that it supports millions of colors. However, it cannot produce images with a transparent background, and is a “lossy” file format. What “lossy” means is that every time you save a JPEG file, you lose some of the detail, quality and color in that photograph. One way around this is to never save and re-save a JPEG file. Keep a high quality version of the file and work with copies of that file as opposed to constantly opening and re-saving the original file.

A PDF file is also known as a Portable Document Format. It is commonly used to save documents that are published and shared on the Internet because it is virtually impossible to change the content of the file once it has been published.It is also used to send files to printing houses as they quality of the text and images can be very very good. Consequently, if you hire a graphic designer to design a business card, or brochure, etc., you will more than likely receive that file in a PDF format to which you would send it off to the printing house to be printed. A PDF file can be created in applications like InDesign, PhotoShop and even Microsoft Word, and then published as a PDF file.

PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics, and is becoming the most popular file format for publishing images to the Internet. It displays millions of colors like JPEGs and can produce images with transparent backgrounds like GIFs. However, the PNG file format is not “lossy,” meaning you can save and re-save a PNG file and there will be no loss of quality with the image.

TIFF or TIF stands for Tagged Image File Format. It is a another high quality format for saving raster or bitmap images like photographs. It is usually a much higher quality file format over jpg or even PNG, so is often times the file format used for high quality print publications like magazines. However, you cannot publish a TIFF file to the Internet.

File Formats that are Specific to Certain Applications
Sometimes you may run across an odd file format that you can’t open and don’t know what to do with. These file could be encoded to open with specific applications and have not yet been published as one of the generic file formats mentioned above. The more common ones are listed below.

An AI file has been created with a vector-based drawing application called Adobe Illustrator. It requires Adobe Illustrator to open and/or edit it. However, you may be able to open a file saved as an AI using the free vector drawing software named Inkscape or import it into Photoshop. If you hire a graphic designer to design a logo, you may receive the logo as an AI file, along with PDFs, EPSs, and PNGs. This is actually something you should require, as it allows the file to be opened and edited in the future, if needed.

A PSD file is created with probably the most common image editing program, Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. It requires one of these application to open and edit it. You may be able to open a PSD file using a free image editing software called GIMP.
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