Portable Network Graphics (PNG /ˈpɪŋ/ PING) is a bitmapped image format that employs lossless data compression. PNG was created to improve upon and replace GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) as an image-file format not requiring a patent license.
PNG supports palette-based images (with palettes of 24-bit RGB or 32-bit RGBA colors), grayscale images (with or without alpha channel), and full-color non-palette-based RGB images (with or without alpha channel). PNG was designed for transferring images on the Internet, not for professional-quality print graphics, and therefore does not support non-RGB color spaces such as CMYK.
PNG files nearly always use file extension PNG or png and are assigned MIME media type image/png; it was approved for this use by the Internet Engineering Steering Group on 14 October 1996. PNG was published as an ISO/IEC standard in 2004.
Read more about Portable Network Graphics: History and Development, PNG Working Group, File Size and Optimization Software
Famous quotes containing the words portable and/or network:
“In the quilts I had found good objects—hospitable, warm, with soft edges yet resistant, with boundaries yet suggesting a continuous safe expanse, a field that could be bundled, a bundle that could be unfurled, portable equipment, light, washable, long-lasting, colorful, versatile, functional and ornamental, private and universal, mine and thine.”
—Radka Donnell-Vogt, U.S. quiltmaker. As quoted in Lives and Works, by Lynn F. Miller and Sally S. Swenson (1981)
“Parents need all the help they can get. The strongest as well as the most fragile family requires a vital network of social supports.”
—Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)