Burn all GIFs! What's wrong with JPEG or PNG?

Nice images tho :-)

What's wrong with JPEG or PNG?

JPEG is evil (because it uses Evil Lossy Compression) and should never be used under any circumstances, but extra-especially it should never be used for images containing text. (Yes, it is _possible_ to create lossless JPEG images, in theory, but most image software does not give the user that option. The Gimp does though, I think.)

PNG is great, and has pretty much taken over as the image format I use for almost everything (except when I want to preserve layers...), but for the type of images represented here (only one foreground color in some of them...) GIF gets better compression. Granted, the circumstances under which it is appropriate to use images with such a low colour depth are rapidly diminishing; the cost of colour printers and inks is at this point such that it might even be sensible to have true-colour letterheads; nevertheless, there *are* still applications for images with fewer than 256 colours. One of the best examples would be images intended to be placed on a quantity of t-shirts and sold or given away at a conference, which is roughly what these images look like they might be destined for.

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$;=sub{$/};@;=map{my($a,$b)=($_,$;);$;=sub{$a.$b->()}}
split//,".rekcah lreP rehtona tsuJ";$\=$ ;->();print$/
[download]

Strange that you mention GIF but don't call it evil. Reducing a general image to GIF format is usually far more lossy than compressing it as JPEG, due to GIF only having at most 256 colours. Furthermore, GIF is evil due to its licensing. The announcement of Unisys to start charging for the production of GIF is what caused PNG to be created. PNG is a replacement for GIF - not for JPEG.

JPEG itself isn't evil. The lossy compression is usually not something you notice, as long as you stick to the domain JPEG was invented for: pictures. GIF and PNG shine where JPEG doesn't: images with a low number of colours, images with sharp boundaries between very different colours, etc. So, typically things as drawings, icons, plots, etc.

Abigail