Can someone talk me out of PNG, please! {New Info}

Why would I stick with GIF when the largest headache about PNG is Internet Explorer versions less than 7 ?

35% of my visitors used IE < 7 for the month of November 2006.
The rest use browsers capable of understanding a 32bit PNG.
Microsoft hasn't even released IE7 in an Automated Update yet as far as I know.

I can do things with PNG that simply are not posible with GIF.
If you use caches correctly, the added filesize of a PNG shouldn't matter.
Same with Javascript/CSS to temprarily patch them in a dying browser.

Graphics Interchange Format needs to be put in a nursing home in the Bahamas, let Portable Network Graphics take over.

yes, actually GIF will in the near future begone, I am not disagreeing at all, but for now, Ill take file size and page load time over 1% of sharper image, which the faint eye misses regardless.

good luck

i have never used PNG, I perfer GIF.

WOW! Thankyou for the responses but let me reiterate, I am NOT using alpha transperancy, I am merely substituting GIFs for PNGs, so will I have a problem of customers seeing my PNG images (NO TRANSPERANCY) on my website?

NOTE: I am talking about true color PNG-24 format

yes, you will have a % of people that will not see your image, although most browsers now support png, but stick with gif for vector style art, and of course you want to use jpg for any roster based image

Littlephoenix Spock is absolutely right in his post, and provides a really original procedure. I never thought to use PHP and thestylesheet Spock!

Pngs are a powerful tool, and viewed properly in all browsers if you know how to set them up. The GIF format really should never be used for images, only simple objects such as text. To tell someone to use that as the img format for a pic will garauntee low picture quality and high file size.

if you read in my earlier post jfrasier, you will see that i stated JPG is for roster based and GIF is vector based. If anything you should learn something from what i have to say, I have been in the field long enough to know what I am talking about.
right now, it is NOT a good idea to use PNG, even if you code it with CSS, right now you would have absolutely NO reason to use PNG on the web only for the exception of displaying your original rendered high quality photograph, artwork, 3D rendered object, and what have you, even then you wont see that much difference.

I have worked with PNG, JPG, TIFF, MBP, EPS, RAW, DIB, RLE you name it I have used it for well over 13 years. I am here on this forum to teach and educate, and to show people what the best, shortest and friendliest way of working with your computer and images on the world wide web. Listen to me or argue with me, at least i get y point across for the ones that actually want to listen and learn.

PS: PNG will overtake GIF in the near future, no argument there, maybe 2 years maybe 4. for now GIF stands tall for file size with transparent bg options specially.

Good luck as always

Pheonix,

I too have been in this business for sometime, specifially web design and programming. The initial post was asking about png. Instead of saying don't use it at all it don't work (when that is indeed a mis-statement, they only don't work if you don't know how to work around them. If I asked about how to fix a png issue, and someone told me don't use it, well that isn't really much of a help is it? The info I stated about not using a gif for images was meant for the original poster, not to say you said different.

Instead of closing the door and saying, just use jpeg, spock offered a good solution providing a work around for the png. That was all I was saying. No reason to get huffy about it.

Is there issues in pngs, sure like anything else. But you can learn to work around them, and use the png as the powerful resource that it is.

Alot of people tend to not take the time to learn how to code properly, and that is always a mistake. The little things add up. All I was saying is that it was way more constructive to provide a way to use the png, as well as a interesting solution. I think that is more useful in the long run, then to say don't use them they don't work. You might as well learn how to get the alphas to work, since you never know what a client will want, and it could very well be a transparent image on a background. What then tell them sorry, I don't do that?

And to the original poster, take note of the solution, even if you choose not to use the png in this instance, it will come up in the future.

I have found that the easiest solution is find a pngfix script that works and hold on to it, add it to your javascript library and take use of it. I lost my good script, and now am back to having to hack through it again.

It is VERY frustrating, but in the long run the client will love the use of transparencies. Just stay away from drop shadows, that seriously jacks up your file size.

PS: I did read the entire post, and the replies.

I think that's awsome Spock. GJ.

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. ~Hans Hofmann

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/
That right there is having problems using PNG images in Windows::Forms, I've been forced to go with GIF for my treeview icons.

// Edit -- Actually, I'm an idiot & didn't realize that a) The color settings of my image list were incorrect & b) There was a base image behind my icons.
PNG works beautifully.
// Edit -- Definately not battin 1000 today, they returned to crapesque as soon as the project was closed and reloaded.

Thanks for this information. I'm still not entirely sure how you would use this though. Would you simply use this filter code exactly as it is, but just replace the png's file source? I would imagine that is how, but I want to make sure. But I guess my real question is, do you have to include this for every png image you use that has alpha transparency or do you just put this in your css one time? Thanks.

png files are big in file size, i would not use it. and jpeg quality 12 is good fallen faith

Wow, the year-long debate...

I say use pngs! They look about a million times better and are well worth any extra effort to display correctly in IE6.

Favoring an image format is kind of silly. IMO, all three image types (GIF, JPG and PNG) have distinct advantages under certain conditions. You should use the file type that is appropriate for the image, the needs of the situation and the quality to filesize ratio.

Broadband access has killed good technique in handling image compression.