PNG: file format simply explained

PNG is a file format. If you receive a PNG file, one thing is already certain: It is an image file.

File format PNG: What it means

The PNG file format is often encountered in the digital world. Just like TIF, JPG and GIF, for example, these formats were designed specifically for image files.

• PNG means Portable Network Graphic. The format was developed as early as 1995. Besides the best possible representation of the photos, it is of course also about the size of the files.

• Digital photos and videos in particular eat up a lot of storage space. Therefore, special formats have been developed to compress the images. The image quality should not or as little as possible suffer.

• Just like the GIF format, the PNG format gives you the option to make the background transparent, which makes it easier to design logos, for example. The PNG format supports both indexed and non-indexed RGB images and RGBA images, in addition to grayscale images.