JPG vs JPEG
Introduction
If you have use any camera that was released within the last ~10 years and transferred your pictures to another device, you have probably noticed the .JPEG ending to each of your files. Now let's say you have downloaded a cool picture from online. If you look at the ending for that file it will likely be .JPG or .jpg. However how both files work is exactly the same.
Both file types do the following:
- They use the same lossy compression algorithm.
- They both store EXIF metadata.
- Neither support transparency which makes them a poor choice for exporting projects from software like Affinity Photo or Adobe Photoshop
So Why Do We Need Both?
The answer is a lot less technical than you might be thinking. Both file types are exactly the same however JPG exists because older windows operating systems were designed to only support up to 3 character file extensions.
What's Best For Your Project?
The best image format is very task specific. However all image formats can be broken down to 3 categories:
- Publishing online: Use JPG/JPEG since they are compressed and compatible with most services. However if you are creating your own website use .webp since they can be compressed even smaller and are optimized for being displayed on websites.
- High Quality Use & Transparency: Use .png for any image that needs to be transparent and/or lossless. If you are exporting a project from a software like Affinity Photo or Adobe Photoshop, you will want to export to png so that no data or clarity is lost.
- Vector: Vector graphics are graphics that can be scaled infinitely without losing any resolution at all. This is because they are technically rendered math equations like lines on a graphing calculator. No matter how big you make they or how far you zoom in they will always remain clear. These are often used on websites where clarity and sharpness is a must have. The draw back is that they are much simpler and are usually just simplistic logos or text.
Conclusion...
I know you probably just came to learn the difference (well lack of difference I guess) between JPG and JPEG but if you read this far, hope you enjoyed and learned something new about digital image formats! For more content like this check out my other blogs or my YouTube channel: https://yt.tyguy047.dev.