Graphics interchange format (GIF)
From The Glossary of Digital Photography
A graphic image file format. GIF was introduced by CompuServe in 1987. It is designed to store low-resolution images, which makes it perfect for many web-based applications where the speed of transmitting or downloading is a problem. It uses only 256 colors instead of 16 million, which is one way it keeps its file size down. The latest version is GIF 89a. See also GIF 89a
