Image Formats? Options

[Tramatize]

Whats the best format to save pictures under?
I used to use GIF. because it usually looks great, but i just saved one and the "drop shadow" looked like crap.
So whats the best format to save under?
Thanks!

[sorry if this post already exists]

[Gigi]

It really depends on the type of job you're looking to complete.

.JPG - Good for web, since the file size is relatively small (it's optimized for photographs). Has smallest file size, comparatively. Is okay for photographs, but really quite horrible for line art or graphic work (unless saved as 600-1000 DPI, quality saved at 12 in Photoshop, but still not the best).

.GIF - You should only use this if your image has less that 256 colours, otherwise you'll lose quality. That's why your drop shadow looked horrible (I'm assuming it was a soft drop-shadow). This means it's probably not a great idea to use this for photographs, but should be alright for line or vector art. Transparency supported.

.PNG retains great quality (it is lossless), therefore, the file size is large. However, it looks for patterns in the picture to compress, meaning that it may be smaller than a .tif file. Probably not necessary for web.

.TIF - Mostly used if you want your image to be lossless (max. image quality), so .tif files are quite large. Used more for print-work. This file supports transparency, so use this if you have an image with transparency with more that 256 colours (just remember to check that option off when saving in Photoshop).