⭐ 5 average from 15 votes.
If you’ve been online for more than, say, five minutes, you’ve seen a GIF. Those tiny loops? Under the hood it’s a bitmap format that works with a palette per frame—at most 256 colors. Data is packed with LZW, which is lossless, so saving doesn’t smear the pixels. Back in 1987, CompuServe published the first spec, GIF87a. Then 1989 brought GIF89a with a simple 1-bit transparency trick and basic multi-frame animation. Small files, easy sharing, good-enough color—no wonder GIF became the early web’s workhorse and it’s still hanging around.
Q: What is GIF?
A: GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is a popular image format that supports animations and transparency.
Q: Why convert PNM to GIF?
A: GIF is widely used for simple animations, web graphics, and supports limited color palettes.