To PNG or Not PNG

How widely accepted are PNG images?

[Storyman]

There are definite advantages to using PNG files for a retro site that I'm building that uses lots of B&W photos.

What I don't know is how widely accepted PNG have become. Looking back over related postings several year old threads suggest that the number of PNGs on the Web is growing, but that doesn't address the question to what percentage of browsers out there actually allow PNG files.

This brings up the second part of my question. Is there a jsp program that will check for the PNG plugin and then notify the user that one needs to be installed in order to view the site?

Springboarding onto the next question. Has anyone approached the problem by first checking the browser to see if PNG files will be displayed and if not to redirect the user to an alternate (duplicate) page that uses SSI to first convert the images to JPEG/jpg?

[Dreamquick]

RE: Compatibility it looks like you're going to have a nice day :)

[webmasterworld.com...]

- Tony

[limbo]

Check the properties of the logo top left, this was enough for me ;)

[Storyman]

Dreamquick,

You did make my day!

It is nice to see that for the most part ver. 3 browsers on support PNG.

I've been a little skittish since a fiasco with CSS-P and how browsers handle it differently.

[automotivetouchup]

That post was too old to reply, but png8 is widely accepted, but what about png24

[ergophobe]

Look at some of the PNG test suites - there are some transparency problems in IE.

Also, test as both png and gif. For very simple images, gifs will be smaller than pngs.

[Storyman]

My reason for using PNG initially was with B&W photos. For that purpose it is better than JPEG because of the higher quality and smaller file size. With color photos JPEG is still better overall.

PNG has alpha channel support, but not all browsers support it. GIF allows a single color to be used as a transparency and most browsers support it.

GIF isn't dead and although the patent for use has expired in the U.S. it won't be free world wide until July of this year, which means there will be renewed support for the file type.