What is the Difference Between Bitmap, JPEG, and GIF Files?
Regardless of whether you’re searching for images to place on your company website or taking pictures for your family scrapbook, the key to a successful digital design experience is to understand the difference between bitmap, JPEG, and GIF files. Each of the file extensions used to label a digital image has its own unique set of advantages and disadvantages. All images that come from a scanner or digital camera are bitmap files. A bitmap file is one that is made up of pixels in a grid. It is a resolution dependent image, so it’s very difficult to increase the size of a bitmap graphic without a noticeable decrease in quality. When you try to make a bitmap image larger through an image editing software program such as Microsoft Paint or Adobe Photoshop, the computer uses a process called interpolation to “guess” what the additional pixels must look like. This may not be noticeable on your computer monitor, but printing the resized graphic almost always results in a blurry and distorted
