Image-codecs

• Codecs are the software which are used to encode and decode the data files.
• Image codecs are used for compress and decompress the image files.

• There are various kinds of image codecs.

BMP (Bitmap):

Advantages:

• Good photo quality.
• Easy to create from existing pixel data storage in an array in memory.

Disadvantages:

• BMP codecs are limited to RGB colors.
• Not support effective image compression.

GIF:

Advantages:

• It allows to create graphics for web page.
• It is the only codec which supports graphics universally for a graphic browser.

Disadvantages:

•  Not good for images.
• Limited numbers of colors are supported (256 colors).

JPEG:

Advantages:

• Low complexity.
• Picture quality is generally good.
• Memory efficient.

Disadvantages:

• Single resolution and single quality.
• No lossless capability during compression.

JPEG 2000:

Advantages:

• Improved coding efficiency.
• Full quality scalable.

Disadvantage:

• Requires high memory.
• Takes more computation time.

M-JPEG:

Advantages:

• It is a lossless codec but at 100% quality degradation is minimal.
• At 5-20 thousand data rates JPEG may produce better results.

Disadvantages:

• Large images.
• Requires significant amount of CPU space.

TIFF:

Advantages:

• Best quality of photographic image.
• Encoding is lossless. Quality image.
• Files can be compressed or uncompressed.

Disadvantages:

• Codec produces large files.

PNG:

Advantages:

• Better compression than GIF codec.
• Designed to be network friendly.

Disadvantages:

• Does not support animation. 
• Lower quality.

Notes: