Information of various kinds (textual, musical and graphic) is presented in the IT sphere in the form of files of various formats. For presentation of graphics, compression and viewing of pictures, files of special formats are used. One of them is PNG.
About PNG format
PNG is most often used to represent graphics on Internet sites, but its use for working with images on local computers is not ruled out. PNG is sometimes referred to as the enhanced GIF format, and that seems to be true.
The main feature of the format that distinguishes it from the long-established TIFF or JPEG files is the ability to set the background transparency. This means that when working with a picture, you can place it on your own, unique background, or even do without it.
There are other interesting features and benefits:
- the widest color gamut;
- the ability to widely change the color cast;
- creation of animation – this brings the format closer to gif;
- high image quality with a small size;
- gamma correction and other features.
The main use of PNG images is viewing in a browser or on a computer using special viewers.
The presence of a transparent background allows you to overlay pictures on other images, which is widely used when creating presentations, animations and unique images.
How to work with PNG format
For simple viewing of pictures in PNG format, you can use standard programs installed on any computer running Windows. There is no problem opening the image in a browser or in Windows Photo Viewer. You can use third-party software. They are convenient and allow you to create entire image libraries in different formats.
PNG format allows you to successfully edit images using specialized software. One of the most common programs is standard Paint. This simplest editor is included with all versions of Windows. It has a rather meager functionality, but it is enough to solve simple tasks like resizing an image, creating labels and simple overlays while saving the resulting file in one of the well-known graphic formats. Transparency is not preserved.
Third-party developers offer many other PNG file editing programs. Among them, there are both free or shareware, as well as commercial ones with developed functionality. The most popular and universal program designed to solve any problems is Photoshop from the world famous Adobe company.
If necessary, you can convert PNG to any other graphic format using online file converters such as Zamzar or AnyConv.
