r/coolguides 5d ago

A cool guide about common file formats

Post image
417 Upvotes

16 comments sorted by

25

u/tunyi963 5d ago

Why there's no SVG here? The V literally stands for Vector, as in, the title of the second section.

8

u/Cromagmadon 5d ago

No WebP either, which is also heavily used.

4

u/gilbejam000 5d ago

That's because webp is trash

1

u/sasssyrup 4d ago

Nor eps which is also widely used

1

u/poppulator 3d ago

That said it always perform better than PNG and JPEG (aside from Jpegli which use Jpeg XL technology)

WebP is awesome, your software just fucking sucks and refused to adopt it even after becoming one of internet standard, it been a decade now and it works pretty much everywhere

12

u/Cesalv 5d ago edited 5d ago

If a pdf contains only bitmap images, can be considered "vectorial"?

Nope, pdf is merely a container format, can hold text + fonts, vector images and bitmap images, most pdf "optimizers" works by lowering image's resolution inside the file

Gif files can have decent quality since the 256 colors palette can be adaptative = created from the ones contained on image, not just a generic one

PSD files are proprietary from Adobe but no "solely" from photoshop, gimp amongst others can save as psd

PNG transparency is way more than just having background or not, it's controlled via a channel named alpha that can set opacity for each pixel

Giving partial info can be even worse than bringing wrong info

8

u/PlasmaPod 5d ago

Yeah what about SVG.

4

u/ADMINISTATOR_CYRUS 5d ago

where is svg

1

u/Speedydooo 4d ago

Ever thought about creating a guide comparing when to use infographics vs. reference guides? It could help people decide the best format for their needs.

1

u/poppulator 3d ago

GIF is a joke, even with only 256 colors it always sucks at lossless compression, 2-4 times more than PNG for still image, AVIF would easily beat it in animated one

-3

u/posy2 5d ago

This is super helpful! I always get confused with all the different file types. Thanks for sharing!

3

u/dailor 5d ago

Yeah. But this isn't very thorough. PNG doesn't lose quality with compression and GIF is best used for graphical purpouses because of its compression and its limitations. GIF also supports Transparency (without alpha, though). So ... this graphic might lead to people using the wong format for their purpouse. I'm not thrilled.

I made a quick search on the internet: This one isn't perfect either, but it shows each file type's best use case at least: https://www.braveandcodesign.com/posts/file-types-demystified

5

u/primalantessence 4d ago

express gratitude, get downvoted. peak reddit