Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tomlin 5906 days ago
For screenshots and other linear graphics, choosy moms choose GIF.
3 comments

Not unless you have only 256 colors on your desktop.

Edit: Even if you're OK with indexed color, the indexed PNG will still be smaller.

It usually doesn't matter. If you have photo-like data in your screenshot, you're better off going with the JPEG.

EDIT: You're probably right about the indexed PNG.

I don't have a .jpg optimizer, but a PNG screenshot run through pngcrush has been consistently smaller than a .jpg compressed to the wrong side of tolerable for me.
For still images, why would you ever go with GIF over PNG?
A screenshot of Opera displaying this website gave me a 90 Kilobyte GIF or a 60 Kilobyte PNG, both with 256 colours.