Here’s the revised list with parent bullet points as headlines:
- History & Origin
- Created in 1987 by Steve Wilhite at CompuServe to enable color images for early online services.
- Official pronunciation: “JIF” (like the peanut butter), though “GIF” (with a hard G) is widely used.
- Technical Specifications
- Color Palette: 8-bit color (max 256 colors per frame), using a color lookup table.
- Compression: Uses LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch), a lossless compression algorithm.
- Transparency: Supports binary transparency (1-bit alpha channel), allowing one color to be fully transparent.
- Animation: Multiple frames can be combined into a single file for simple looped animations.
- Capabilities & Limitations
- No Audio: GIFs cannot contain sound.
- Frame Rate: Typically low (e.g., 10–15 fps), not suitable for high-quality video.
- File Size: Can be large for complex animations due to limited compression.
- Usage: Popular for memes, simple animations, and low-resolution graphics.
- Modern Relevance
- Cultural Impact: Dominates social media, messaging, and web culture for short, looping animations.
- Alternatives: Formats like APNG, WebP, and MP4 offer better quality and features, but GIF remains iconic.