OK, so now we know how to include images in page, but what kind of image should we use? Images for webpages are usually saved as either GIF or JPG images.

GIF stand for Graphic Interface Format, and was created by Compuserve. It's a good compression scheme and can save you lots of download time. Because of the way it works, it's best used on line-drawings, text, or other images which have large expanses of similar color. The logo on the first page of this site is a gif.

JPG was created by the Joint Photographic experts Group. It's more complex and works better on photos. It's a "lossy" compression scheme. This is a jpg:

There is also a relatively new format that is beginning to be used on the Web; PNG, Portable Network Graphics. This format combines many of the best features of both gif and jpg, and compresses well, but support for it is only slowly being adopted.

To better explain the differences between gifs and jpgs, and how to utilize their capabilities to the utmost, we'll go a little further into how computers deal with images in Chapter Eighteen.