Why was PNG invented?
PNG (pronounced "ping") is an acronym for Portable Network Graphics. It was originally
developed for the internet as a replacement for GIF due to patent issues with GIFs
creator, CompuServe. While this was the initial motivation for its development,
PNG's superior color and transparency has helped it to become extremely popular
for both software and web graphics. Even desktop development platforms such as Visual
Studio are now starting to support it.
Finding a PNG icon set can often be difficult due to the overwhelming popularity
of GIF and ICO. Realizing the power and potential of PNG, we have made it a staple
of nearly all our stock icon products.
What's so great about it?
If it had to be summed up in one word, it would certainly be "portability," hence
the 'P' in 'P N G.' It's flexible, compact, supports 24-bt color, and can blend
effortlessly into any background, making it an excellent choice as an icon format.
It also offers a lossless data compression, resulting in beautiful, crisp images.
To fully appreciate this effect, considering taking a look at our
Office Icons
which include samples demonstrating PNG's authentic reproduction of our often highly
guarded vector source files.
PNG vs. ICO (XP/Vista):
PNG and
ICO icons
share a lot of similarities, particularly in their strengths which lie in their
high-color capacity and support for transparent layer merging, also known as Alpha
Blending. ICO has the ability to embed multiple resolutions into a single file,
unlike other formats, including PNG. This advantage comes at a price as file sizes
also tend to be much larger.
The future of PNG on the Web:
Adoption on the web has been somewhat slow, probably due to Microsoft Internet Explorer
(IE) not supporting it until recently (v7.0). With adoption rates for new browser
versions taking up to five years, this will likely be an issue for quite some time.
While this might sound surprising to those in the technology community, one has
to remember the millions of non-power users whose priorities are not set on having
the latest versions of the programs they use.
Several different incarnations:
PNGs come in several different encodings, although this FAQ focuses only on the
32-bit version that we use when creating PNG icons.
Still worried about compatibility?
Download sample PNGs from select
icon packages.