Preserving spacing and whitespace

[The Doormouse]

Not to reopen this can-of-worms thread again, but your perceived
support for PNG format is wrong. PNG is *widely* supported!!

You must have missed the part of the PNG discussion where we noted that
transparency was not supported "out of the box" on IE, the biggets
browser out there. For that reason, one has to be careful when using it.

If you are not using transparency, you may as well sue GIF - and GIF can
support some transparency as well, just not the same level as PNG-24.

I never said "free" tool. I said "sheet music creation tool".
Illustrator is a very poor choice for laying out sheet music!

Not so. There are symbol sets for specific applications.
Though, InDesign would be a much better choice.

The Doormouse

 

[The Doormouse]

"Biggest" and "use". A few spelling errors. Oops.


The Doormouse

 

[Toby Inkster]

You must have missed the part of the PNG discussion where we noted that
transparency was not supported "out of the box" on IE, the biggets
browser out there.

You must have missed the part of the PNG discussion where we noted that
256-colour PNG transparency is supported almost as widely as 256-colour
GIF transparency; and that 24-bit PNG alpha transparency is supported by
IE (both platforms), Gecko, Opera (since 5.x or 6.x depending on platform)
and KHTML, but a small hack is required for IE on Windows.

 

[Steve Pugh]

You must have missed the part of the PNG discussion where we noted that
transparency was not supported "out of the box" on IE, the biggest
browser out there. For that reason, one has to be careful when using it.

PNG Transparency is supported in IE. Have you ot been reading this
entire thread? Alpha transparency isn't supported (but neither GIF nor
JPEG support alpha transparency) and transparency of non-indexed PNGs
isn't supported (but JPEG doesn't do transparency either).

If you are not using transparency, you may as well use GIF -

Except that PNGs are often smaller.

and GIF can support some transparency as well,

Exactly the same level of transparency that IE supports in PNGs.

In other words, with the exception of animation, there is nothing you
can do with GIFs and JPEGs that can not be done with PNGs, even
allowing for IE's crappy support. But the PNGs are often smaller.

Steve

 

[The Doormouse]

In other words, with the exception of animation, there is nothing you
can do with GIFs and JPEGs that can not be done with PNGs, even
allowing for IE's crappy support. But the PNGs are often smaller.

Reverse that - with the exception of alpha transparency, there is nothing
that you can do with PNG that can not be done with a combination of GIF or
JPG.

Also, PNGs are NOT smaller in all cases (and photos are best/smallest with
JPG).

The Doormouse

 

[The Doormouse]

256-colour PNG transparency is supported almost as widely as 256-colour
GIF transparency; and that 24-bit PNG alpha transparency is supported by
IE (both platforms

I remind you that transparency required ... screw it. Go back and read.
OUT OF THE BOX - no HACKS, no special CODING ... GIF and JPG work.

PNG must be fiddled with, that's the bottom line.

The Doormouse

 

[Toby Inkster]

Reverse that - with the exception of alpha transparency, there is nothing
that you can do with PNG that can not be done with a combination of GIF or
JPG.

Ah, but there is:

- 48-bit colour images
- non-lossy 24-bit colour images

 

[Toby Inkster]

I remind you that transparency required ... screw it. Go back and read.
OUT OF THE BOX - no HACKS, no special CODING ... GIF and JPG work.

256-colour PNGs with binary transparency work out of the box - no hacks,
no special coding.

And they're smaller than GIFs. (Nearly always.)

 

[The Doormouse]

- 48-bit colour images
- non-lossy 24-bit colour images

- 48 bits of color are a waste, plain and simple.
- non-loss 24-but color images in PNG format are unreasonably large for web
graphics. If I wanted a non-loss format, I would use TIFF.

The Doormouse

 

[The Doormouse]

256-colour PNGs with binary transparency work out of the box - no
hacks, no special coding.

Basically, the same as a GIF.

And they're smaller than GIFs. (Nearly always.)

Here are hard test results with an image filled with a rainbow gradient:

GIF -> 119kb with 256 colors, diffusion dither at 88%, perceptual
palette PNG-8 -> 50kb (same settings, equivalent to GIF),
PNG-24 -> 130kb
JPG -> 45kb at Maximum quality (maximum file size)

So the PNG-8 "wins" on a large image versus GIF but sucks badly if you
compare it to JPG. PNG-24, the super-deluxe non-loss version, REALLY
sucks versus JPG. Even PNG-8 cannot compete. The "lossiness" of JPG is a
non-issue at maximum quality.

Here are test results with a Checkerboard (4 squares):

GIF -> 3kb (no dither, 256 colors)
PNG-8 -> 6.8kb (wel, well, well ... )
PNG-24 -> 12kb
JPG -> 7kb

Looks like PNG cannot hold its own reliably againt GIF in two very
generic, representative tests. PNG is worth looking into for soem
images, and could be used on a case-by-case basis. PNG fails miserably
when compared to JPG in a quality/size test. Of course, if I
overcompressed my JPGs into artifact-hell, PNG might look good
quality-wise, but the file size comparison would be even more lopsided
into JPG's favor.

Overall, PNG has potential in a few cases where one might be using GIFs.
Generally, if someone forgot that the PNG format existed, they would
suffer no great loss.

I see no real reason to use it, in most cases.

The Doormouse

 

[Sam Hughes]

Here are hard test results with an image filled with a rainbow
gradient:

GIF -> 119kb with 256 colors, diffusion dither at 88%, perceptual
palette PNG-8 -> 50kb (same settings, equivalent to GIF),
PNG-24 -> 130kb
JPG -> 45kb at Maximum quality (maximum file size)

So the PNG-8 "wins" on a large image versus GIF but sucks badly if you
compare it to JPG. PNG-24, the super-deluxe non-loss version, REALLY
sucks versus JPG. Even PNG-8 cannot compete. The "lossiness" of JPG is a
non-issue at maximum quality.

Here are test results with a Checkerboard (4 squares):

GIF -> 3kb (no dither, 256 colors)
PNG-8 -> 6.8kb (wel, well, well ... )
PNG-24 -> 12kb
JPG -> 7kb

Until you post a URL to these images, your results are meaningless. So
please do so!

 

[The Doormouse]

Until you post a URL to these images, your results are meaningless. So
please do so!

I do not argue results and they stand as-is.

The Doormouse

 

[Sam Hughes]

I do not argue results and they stand as-is.

You refuse to post a copies of the two images on the Web? Then what good
is your evidence?

 

[The Doormouse]

You refuse to post a copies of the two images on the Web? Then what
good is your evidence?

I do not care what you want.

The Doormouse