File Question

Excellent point. And on the same note, when submitting a wallpaper, why does it specifically mention Bitmap? Who honestly saves anything as bmp? It's so ridiculously large when jpg is so much smaller. That confused me when I was submitting my first wallpaper. I of course did ignore the bitmap comment and uploaded a zip of jpg, but still.

I know it says bitmap, but jpg is preferred...

At least jpg is what I always upload   

when submitting a wallpaper, why does it specifically mention Bitmap?

I agree it's confusing, but it does not say ".bmp". There are 2 types of images, BITMAP, and VECTOR. Bitmap images are any of the formats that are not vector (raster images)..... jpg, bmp, png, tiff, tga, gif, etc...... are all bitmaps. About Vector and Bitmap Images

I agree it's confusing, but it does not say ".bmp". There are 2 types of images, BITMAP, and VECTOR. Bitmap images are any of the formats that are not vector (raster images)..... jpg, bmp, png, tiff, tga, gif, etc...... are all bitmaps. About Vector and Bitmap Images

Maybe it should have a disclaimer mentioning that or something. I know I didn't know about that, how many others actually do? I just think the wording could be made less confusing (just like the Visual Styles thing on the Gallery page, I think StyleXP when I hear that, not Windowblinds Skins).

Love the replies using the Smileys Skinhit!
That's freakin' awesome.

I know it says bitmap, but jpg is preferred... At least jpg is what I always upload

I know JPEG is preffered Professor Zadeh, but why?  

Please forgive me if this sounds stupid, but I was wondering why we have to save our images in JPEG format instead of GIF format, which would use less File size for these types of images. In Gif format, we could even preview animated Bootskin images that would look like the original Bootskin Preview itself and still use half to a third of the File size, which would also help to save Data Transfer Bandwidth.

what about an answer to this?

I can't answer this, because I don't know. I suspect only the site coders know.

I suspect it's because the GIF format can't support the wide range of colours & shades that JPG can (it may be as low as 256 colours IIRC). GIF is great for scanned text and 'cartoon-like' images etc which have lots of areas of the same colour.

I can see the outcry from people being forced to convert their artistic creations to GIF only to see them horribly dithered etc.

You can always make JPG files smaller by increasing the compression (i.e lowering the quality). It's amazing how low you can go and still have an acceptable result...

Thank You for the honest answer Koasati. It's very much appreciated.
I wonder if Brad himself would know?

I suspect it's because the GIF format can't support the wide range of colours & shades that JPG can

I know, quoting myself, how lame... from the Wikipedia entry for GIF:

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is an 8-bit-per-pixel bitmap image format using a palette of up to 256 distinct colours from the 24-bit RGB colour space.

and

A GIF image employs lossless data compression so that the file size of an image may be reduced without degrading the visual quality, provided the image can be rendered with only 256 colours. (However, there is a hack that can overcome this limitation under certain circumstances; see true colour.) This limitation makes the GIF format unsuitable for colour photographs (which are more commonly seen in the JPEG format) and other images with continuous colour, but well-suited for more simple images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of colour. Monochrome photographs can be represented well as GIFs but still suffer from file size bloat due to the inappropriate compression technique.

If you're referring to *only* bootskin previews then you probably have a point since they have a very restricted colour palette and the animation idea is a good one, but as a general rule for uploads in all categories GIF is probably not a good choice.

I suspect it's because the GIF format can't support the wide range of colours & shades that JPG can (it may be as low as 256 colours IIRC). GIF is great for scanned text and 'cartoon-like' images etc which have lots of areas of the same colour. I can see the outcry from people being forced to convert their artistic creations to GIF only to see them horribly dithered etc. You can always make JPG files smaller by increasing the compression (i.e lowering the quality). It's amazing how low you can go and still have an acceptable result...

You're absolutely correct Chris and please forgive me for my ignorance.
I create only BootSkins, and was reffering only to them. BootSkins are 640X480 and only 16 colours, PEREFCT for GIFs. I totally forgot about everything else on the site that WinCustomize does, which of course WOULD be better with JPEGs.
So I guess my question should had been, "why can we not save in GIF as well?"