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AI overview
A GIF is a digital image format that can display either a single still picture or a sequence of images that play in a loop to create a simple animation. It matters because GIFs are widely used on the internet for sharing quick, repeating animations and memes that are easy to view across different devices and websites.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- File format.screenshot
- Rotating earth (large).gif
- File format.screenshot_size
- 200px
- File format.caption
- An animated GIF of a rotating globe
- File format.extension
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- File format.extensions
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- File format.uniform_type
- com.compuserve.gif
- File format.magic
- GIF87a/GIF89a
- File format.developer
- CompuServe
- File format.latest_release_version
- 89a
- File format.genre
- lossless bitmap image format
- File format.standard
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- File format.standards
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via Wikipedia infobox
Article
23 sectionsContents
- History
- Terminology
- Pronunciation
- Usage
- File format
- Palettes
- True color
- Example GIF file
- Image coding
- Image decoding
- LZW code lengths
- Uncompressed GIF
- Compression example
- Interlacing
- Animated GIF
- Metadata
- Alternatives
- PNG
- Animation formats
- Uses
- See also
- References
- External links
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on June 15, 1987.
The format can contain up to 8 bits per pixel, allowing a single image to reference its own palette of up to 256 different colors chosen from the 24-bit RGB color space. It can also represent multiple images in a file, which can be used for animations, and allows a separate palette of up to 256 colors for each frame. These palette limitations make GIF less suitable for reproducing color photographs and other images with color gradients but well-suited for simpler images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of color.