Conor Latham

Impact that File

Formats,
Compression
Techniques, Image
Resolution and
Colour Depth have
on File Size and
Image Quality
D2

Introduction
In this assignment I will be discussing the impact that file format, compression
techniques, image resolution and colour depth have on file size and image
quality.

File Formats
JPEG:
Jpg or jpeg is a common method of lossy compression for digital images,
particularly for images produced using digital photography. The amount of
compression can be adjusted, allowing an adjustable trade-off between storage
size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with very little
loss in overall image quality. JPEG tends to be a good option when compressing
images as the quality does not severely reduce, it is typically when the image is
enlarged or zoomed when the quality will be affected.
Bitmap:
Bitmap is an image file format designed to store bitmap graphic files
independently of the display device. The bitmap is capable of storing two
dimensional images with random width, height and resolution, the images can be
either single coloured or multi-coloured. There is an added option of data
compression, alpha channels and colour profiles. This allows for very good file
compression without the worry of losing the overall image quality.
PNG:
Png is a bitmap file format that supports lossless data compression. Png was an
improved design of the gif, and was intended as a replacement for the gif. The
png is now the most used and supported lossless image compression file
extension on the internet. The reason this file type is so popular is because of the
ability to compress the file without losing image quality. The png as a whole are
generally quite small files without compression, but a png file works so well with
compression techniques that it has become very popular.
GIF:
Typically gifs are animations used most commonly in presentations and websites.
Gif is currently the most widely used and accepted file format for graphics, due
to its wide support and ease of use. The range of colours are a minimum of 256
colours, this is good so the image file size stays small, however when this image
is converted into another format the quality is greatly reduced and the same
goes for when the image is compressed the file size does not reduce massively
and the quality greatly reduces.

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As you can see I have changed the file type on the same image so that one
image is .jpg, one image is GIF, one image is JPEG, and the final image is PNG-8.
The first image with the .jpg file type is a size of 707KB, the second image with
file type GIF is 76.55KB, the third image with file type JPEG is 32.69KB and the
final image with file type PNG-8 is 66.51KB. So as you can see with four different
file types of the same image the most preferred file type when it comes to
compression and file size is JPEG.

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Compression and Compression Techniques

As you can
see I saved
the two
images in
different
formats (.JPG
and .png) to
see how the
compression
would affect
the images
with different
file types.

Currently the
file sizes are
233KB for the
png and 45KB
for the JPG.

After the two

files have
been sent to
the
compressed
file we can
now see that
neither of the
images have
massively
changed in
file size, but
the jpg is
much smaller
making it the
preferred file
type for
compression.

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Colour Depth

The above screenshot shows four versions of the same image the top left image
in the unchanged original which has good image quality, the bottom left is a JPEG
with slightly lower quality but no noticeable difference, the top right is a GIF with
a colour depth of only 64 which massively reduces the quality of the image, the
bottom right is a PNG-8 with a noticeable difference of quality similar to that of
the GIF with a low colour depth. When it comes to image quality when there are
a number of strong colours, PNG-8 and GIF are poor options because they have
very low colour depths of 64, whereas other file types may have 128 or even
256.

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As you can see I have now reduced the colour depth on the GIF to an even lower
level of 4, this has dramatically changed the look of the image and now barely
resembles the original. This shows that when an image with varying strong
colours is being edited it is very important to consider colour depth when picking
a file type.

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Resolution

The above screenshot shows three images with GIF as the file type for all three,
but the difference is the different lossy effects. The top left image is the original
jpg with no lossy effect, the top right is a GIF with 20% lossy effect, the bottom
left is a GIF with 50% lossy effect, bottom right is a GIF with 80% lossy effect. To
make sure this is fair the colour depth on all the images are the same to help
show the importance of resolution. From this we can see that the higher the lossy
effect the more blurred the image becomes, as you can see by the fact that the
original image has no lossy effect and looks the clearest and sharpest of the
images. This shows the importance of considering resolution when editing
images, although lossy effect can be used as an advantage, too much lossy
effect will just ruin the image and make it look less appealing.

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