PNGs have been around since the mid-1990’s and as the web has evolved, the popularity of this image format has increased. Here is a quick guide to the humble PNG.
A Brief History
The PNG was developed for two reasons. The first being that in 1995, Unisys patented the LZW data compression algorithm. This algorithm was used in the GIF file format. Any program used to create GIF images would now have to pay for the right to do so. Understandably, this wasn’t well received. [Here's a great account of the controversy]
As for the second reason, the GIF file format was simply outdated and needed a replacement. GIFs could (and can) only display 256 colors and have limited transparency options. PNGs were developed to improve upon GIF’s limitations.
Version 1.0 of the PNG specification was released on October 1, 1996.
Continue Reading…
