Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is an 8-bit-per-pixel bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability.
The format uses a palette of up to 256 distinct colors from the 24-bit RGB color space. It also supports animations and allows a separate palette of 256 colors for each frame. The color limitation makes the GIF format unsuitable for reproducing color photographs and other images with continuous color, but it is well-suited for more simple images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of color.
GIF images are compressed using the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) lossless data compression
technique to reduce the file size without degrading the visual quality. This compression
technique was patented in 1985. Controversy over the licensing agreement between the patent
holder, Unisys, and CompuServe in 1994 inspired the development of the
Portable Network Graphics standard;
since then
all the relevant patents have expired.
OpenOffice.org Draw is capable of opening
Graphics Interchange format files.
Working with GIF images
The following screencasts demonstrate how to work with GIF images:
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This text is based on the definition of the Graphics Interchange Format from Wikipedia.org
and is distributed under the GNU free documentation license.
