PNG format, its features, pros and cons

The Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format was developed in 1995 as a more versatile replacement for the GIF format. It is a lossless image compression format, which means that the image quality is preserved during compression.

One of the main advantages of the PNG format is the ability to use transparency. Because the PNG format stores transparency information, it becomes very convenient for creating and using images with transparent backgrounds. In addition, PNG can be used to create images with an alpha channel, which allows you to make images semi-transparent.

One of the features of the PNG format is its ability to save images in TrueColor format with a palette of 24 bits per pixel. This means that PNG can store a wider range of colors than the GIF format, which uses only 8 bits per pixel.

The PNG format also has the ability to store metadata such as copyright information, keywords, and so on. This makes it very user-friendly for web designers and other professional users.

Despite all these advantages, the PNG format is not suitable for all cases. PNG images can take up more disk space than JPEG images, making it less suitable for storing large or high resolution images. Also, PNG does not support animation, unlike the GIF format.

Some programs may have problems displaying PNG images, especially if they don't update their file format libraries. Also, PNG can be more expensive to process than some other formats.

In general, the PNG format is a very convenient and flexible format for storing images. It can be used in many different areas, from web design to graphic design. However, before using PNG, you need to make sure that this format is suitable for a particular task, as it can have its limitations and disadvantages.

To open PNG files, you need to use software that supports this format. On Windows and macOS computer operating systems, installing a simple image viewer such as Windows Photo Viewer or Preview usually allows you to open PNG files.

There are also a large number of image editing programs that support the PNG format. Some of the more popular programs in this area include Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, Paint.NET, and Inkscape.

If you need to convert a file from another format to PNG, you can use specialized image converter software such as XnConvert, Format Factory or Online-Convert.

In general, to open PNG files, you need to install suitable software or use online converters if you need to convert to this format.