Which takes up more disc space, a .gif or .jpg?

[Butch1]

Hi, if both formats use 24 colors. Which takes up more disc space, a .gif or .jpg? Couldn't find it on google, it just talked about the differenced between the two except that.Thanks.

[Ness_du_Frat]

It depends on the size and the complexity of your images.
Usually, big gif images take more disc space than the same image in jpg. But for medium images, if you have few colors, I guess the gif is better.

[Butch1]

If they are both the same size and both figured to accept only 24 basic colors?

[Ness_du_Frat]

Yeah, as I said, it depends on how complex your image is. If it has large areas of the same color, jpg is lighter (if I remember it correctly) If it's very complex (lots of lines, lots of different colors (even 24) in the same area, patterns, gif is better. (I hope I'm not mixing things up, but anyway, the file size depends on the complexity of your image)

[wh666-666]

ive found you can often get best results with smallest size through gifs ... also advantage of transparency helps alot .. im not a lover of jpg as they are also harder to edit the file size than gifs while still retaining a good wuality

[nitrexoxide]

I prefur gif or png for smaller files, only use jpg for large photos etc, esp for logos they blur everything up, although that can be a goot thing, depends what you want ;)

[Ness_du_Frat]

I tend to prefer gif for small files as well. But really, it depends. I use photoshop and "save for the web", then I compare the jpg and gif files, so see if there's a decrease in quality and which takes the most dic space.
I personnaly hate png, because they are always so heavy. ^^

[skilled1]

I personnaly hate png, because they are always so heavy. ^^

but used in taste a png can be quite usefull

[Poxicator]

gif is better for compressing large areas of the same colour eg. logos, text, flags. You can also define the colours used within a gif and therefore reduce its colour space and size (indexed cols).
jpg is better for compressing photo images where tones and soft areas occur, however you can use more compression which ultimately results in a smalle file size.
Make sure you optimise your image, with no preview (try save for web in PS or Image Ready).

[felgall]

JPeG images always use 16 million colours - you can't limit them to 24 colours. If 24 colours is all you need then chances are that a properly optimized GIF or PNG will be smaller. GIF supports up to 256 colours, PNG supports up to 16 million colours with 256 transparency levels).

Which format ends up being smaller in file size can vary from one image to the next so sometimes it is worth trying muiltiple alternatives. Go to http://www.netmechanic.com/accelerate.htm and see how big optimized versions of your image would be in different formats with different colour settings and choose the smallest version that looks the way you want.

[Poxicator]

JPeG images always use 16 million colours

Thats not quite correct. A jpeg in colour has the potential to display 16.7 million colours but it doesnt necessarily use them. However you can save a greyscale image as a .jpg which therefore only uses 256 levels of grey.

[Butch1]

Sounds like a loaded question and like it doesn't matter too much. ...but since there are so many other colors that the other files use and the gifs can be compressed to a few, wouldn't that mean the other files would take up more disc space? Due to the data needed to utilize a lot more colors?

[Poxicator]

idd it would which is why .gif's are usually smaller - you can use index colours for .gif's which reduces the colour space to only those used within the file. A .jpg may only have 2 cols in it but as mentioned above it supports a larger colour space. Having said that if there were only 2 cols used both would benefit from high compression even at the best quality.