PNG

(Portable Network Graphics) A bitmapped graphics file format endorsed by the World Wide Web Consortium. Pronounced "ping," it was developed to replace the GIF format because of potential legal problems (see GIF and GIF patents). Using lossless compression, the PNG format supports an alpha channel for transparency as well as built-in gamma and color correction.

PNG-8, PNG-24, PNG-32

PNG-8 stores each pixel in eight bits and uses an indexed color palette similar to GIFs. PNG-24 offers true 24-bit color, and PNG-32 adds an 8-bit alpha channel to 24-bit color. See GIF and GIF patents.