lossless and lossy compression

Lossless compression is mainly used to compress:

• images
• sound
• text

It is generally the technique of choice for detailed product images, photography showcases, text files and spreadsheet files, where the loss of picture quality, words or data (e.g., financial data) could pose a problem.

The Graphics Interchange File (GIF), an image format used on the internet, is generally compressed using lossless compression. RAW, BMP and PNG are also lossless image formats.

Lossy compression is mainly used to compress:

• images
• audio
• video

This technique is preferred for audio and video files where some amount of information loss is acceptable since it’s unlikely to be detected Using JPEG compression, the creator can decide how much loss to introduce, and how much of a trade-off is acceptable between file size and image quality.

Lossy compression is also suitable for websites featuring JPEG files and fast loading times since the compression ratio can be adjusted while maintaining the right balance.