I am weirdly excited about Primp My Blog today because this is a mistake I see being made by even experienced bloggers every day. Saving images in the proper file type is easy, and once you know which to use and when, your blog will look infinitely better!
There are three common image types that you see around the internet: gifs, jpgs, and pngs, each with its own pros and cons. Keep in mind that this is a very basic description but it should be plenty of information for the purposes of most bloggers.
Save this image! Pin it! Learn it! Live it!
Use a gif…
…If your image has a relatively small number of colors. Gifs display a maximum of 256 colors, so they should be used for images with flat fields of color (without gradients) and should never be used for photos. One advantage of gifs is that you can create a transparent image so that the page background will show through.
Use a jpg…
…When your image is a photo. Jpgs can be saved at several levels of compression. Compression reduces the size of the file (and thus creates a faster load time when they are displayed on your blog) but also reduces the quality of the image.
Use a png…
…When your image combines flat fields of color and photos or otherwise requires smooth gradients of colors. Like a gif, a png can create transparency in images. The downside to pngs is that they are larger files and take longer to load. Your job as a blogger is to think about all of the images on your blog and decide on a balance between quality and file size.
If you’re still not sure which file type to use…
…Try them out! Save your images, upload them, see what they look like. If you see pixelation, distortion, or see that your image has lost color or clarity, try a different file type.
If you see this, you did it wrong!
So go, little primpers! Go out in the world and save your images properly! You can thank me later. ; )
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Very helpful! Thank you Kira.
Super handy! It took me a while to figure out what to use PNG format for
This is SO VERY HELPFUL! How did I never know this?! Keep up with this series, I love it!
I love a girl who knows her file types and compression algorithms.
I had no idea what the difference was between them! I used to just save them all as jpegs. I won’t be doing that anymore!
Thanks for the advice.
great post and corresponding images. I know those take forever to make. I really appreciate them. They really add so much to the post.
You’re so right, they do take a lot of time, especially since I’m still learning a lot of things myself. As long as they help, I’ll keep doing them!
i think your blog is absolutely lovely! i just got into pngs myself
Thank you, Sofia! Embrace the png!!
Thanks for posting about this. As a new blogger I have soooo many questions. This was very helpful.
great post! thank you so so much!!! <3
I just stumbled upon this post and have to thank you so much for posting this! I just realized this is why it didnt show my header properly. PNGs ftw !
Seriously, pngs are the best! Spread the word of the png!
Thank you for this! I will now go forward, saving images in the most appropriate format, now that I know the difference!
Gah, seriously. I LOVE this, thanks so much!
I always get confused on which one to use, so thank you for posting this !!!
Excellent advice… thanks so much for this! (Wish I’d know this all ages ago!!)
Oooooo thank you, thank you, thank you! I love your blog Kira! You are such a blessing to me, other noob bloggers and less fortunate tech wannabes!
That was very helpful Kira! I’ve struggled with pixelation for a long time, now I know how to avoid it. I’ve just taken my blog to a higher level of quality! Thank you!
Thank you Kira!! I was wondering why my logo was blurry.. I’m going to fix it..
Thank you so much! I’ve just been fiddling with my blog header and it looked very fuzzy but now it’s a GIF it looks much sharper
That is super helpful, thank you !!
Holy bat man! I saw the comment about the fuzzy logo and since I had just updated my blog header decided to go and change that to a png (since I used text and photographs). I kept one window open with the jpg version, and opened a new window with the new png file uploaded. WOW!! A very noticeable difference. …which of course you would expect… I however only learnt this, and I’m very grateful to have come across this information. Thank you. =D
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I will NOT thank you later. I will thank you RIGHT NOW. Thanks, thanks, thanks!
I am self-taught and it’s so easy to overlook really simple, basic things. You learn as you go. Thanks so much for helping me out with this. It’s so silly that it took me this long to figure out the answer but I am very appreciative that I have finally found it! Solves my problems.
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