Template talk:ShouldBePNG

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[edit] PNG vs. JPEG

(the following is a recounting of a discussion between me and Anthony5429, to be found on Anthony's talk page.)

I noticed that you created a template for suggesting that images be replaced with a PNG equivalent, an excellent idea as far as I'm concerned.

However, you have used it to suggest that photographic (or photolike, e.g. images that contain gradients with smooth transitions) images be replaced with PNG equivalents. Such replacement would result in drastically increased filesize with negligible or no gain in quality at all. Compare:

[1] [2] (note that the PNG version is slated for deletion, so it may or may not be around when you get to checking it out.)

The PNG version of this photographic image is four times larger, yet has no improvements in quality (with the exception of being cropped)! This holds true for any image converted from a lossy format (such as JPEG) to a lossless one (as PNG is), and while photographs both created and displayed in lossless formats such as PNG would undoubtedly be devoid of compression artifacts, they would also be way, way too large.

I ask that you please stop tagging photographic images with the ShouldBePNG tag, and use it exclusively for images which contain primarily pixel and line-art, as well as text. --FrostyBytes 22:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with most of your comment on my discussion page. However, when I made the template, I was also considering the fact that a PNG file can be edited with no loss of quality and does not require a patent license to use (as GIF does - does JPEG??). Also, PNG has the advantage over JPEG and BMP of optional transparency and PNG is better than BMP because it is compressed (losslessly of course). I will, for now, follow your suggestion about using Template:ShouldBePNG, but would you please post your concerns on the Template talk:ShouldBePNG page so others can discuss them as well? Thanks! --Anthony5429 01:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

(end of recounting)

I agree with FrostyBytes. Converting JPGs to PNG, or using PNG to store photographic images, is senseless. JPEG is free and does a much better job of compressing such noisy images than does PNG. If we want higher quality images and are willing to make file sizes bigger, then the better choice byte-for-byte would be to upload JPEG images with less compression at higher resolution. It is possible to edit JPG files without loss, also; generally any 8x8 blocks that are undisturbed will be recompressed the same way as long as the same quality settings are used (some programs offer explicitly lossless operations like 8p-aligned cropping). By the way, the GIF patents are expired now, though there's really no good reason to use the format any more. — brighterorange (talk) 14:45, 29 November 2006 (UTC)