Graphics Interchange Format

Graphics Interchange Format (in Spanish «Graphics Interchange Format») also called Compuserve GIF and better known as GIF is a digital graphic format widely used on the World Wide Web (WWW), both for images and animations.

Created by CompuServe in 1987 to bring a color Video format to its file download areas, it replaced its earlier black and white RLE format. GIF became very popular because it could use the LZW (Lempel Ziv Welch) compression algorithm, which was more efficient than the Run-length encoding or RLE algorithm used by the PCX and MacPaint formats. Therefore large images could be downloaded in a reasonable amount of time, even with very slow modems.

GIF is a lossless format for images with up to 256 colors, limited by a palette restricted to that number of colors. For this reason, with images with more than 256 colors —with a color depth greater than eight—, the image must adapt and reduce its number of colors, which produces the consequent loss of quality.

History

GIFs spread thanks to the Netscape browser that allowed them to be viewed. If Netscape hadn't integrated GIFs, they probably would have died in 1998. It was in that year that CompuServe was bought by AOL and let the patent on them expire, thus releasing the format to the general public.

In the 2000s, when Flash appeared, software that allowed you to create more attractive, powerful animations that included audio and could be interactive, GIFs fell out of use. Paradoxically, the Flash software is obsolete, since tablets and smartphones like the iPhone do not reproduce it. If advertising banners are made in Flash and you want them to be on other mobiles and cannot be seen, you stop using them. The technical reasons are not the only ones that justify the current rise in the use of GIFs, the functionality, the great social acceptance and viral power that they have, added to the fact that they are easy to see, reproduce, share and create, make them a graphic tool. Very complete communicative.

In 2012, GIF became Word of the Year as it was recognized by the Oxford Dictionary. According to Katherine Martin, head of the dictionary, "the GIF is no longer just a means of expressing pop culture: it has become a tool for research and journalism, and its lexical identity is transformed and maintained."

A year later, in 2013, the creator of the format, Steve Wilhite, collected the Webby Award for Lifetime Achievement and took advantage of the moment to make an important revelation: in these awards, the speech cannot have more than five words and Wilhite opted to project his on the wall: "Pronounced JIF, not GIF. Also, that same year, Alex Chung and Ace Cooke founded the Giphy online database, which allows users to share and search animated GIF files. His idea arose with the intention of transmitting information quickly and more visually.

In 2015, Facebook added support for GIFs to its Page and its chats, even though they did not originally support this format of communication.

Currently, WhatsApp has included GIFs on its platform, although they are not exactly GIFs, but short video files in MP4 format without sound, which they have called GIFs due to their popularity of this format.

Features

• A GIF image has a palette of 2 to 256 colors (8 bits). Each color of the pallet has a defined RGB value in a range of 16.8 million colors, but the maximum number of colors that can appear in the image are 256.
• It admits binary transparency, that is, it only supports full transparency or opaque colors. This type of transparency does not require an additional channel and is done simply by marking a 100% transparent palette color.
• Another characteristic for which this format is especially known is to allow animations, with loop or without loop.
• For their compression they use the LZW algorithm among others.
• It supports intertwined for the gradual loading of the image in slow connections.

Uses

Images in GIF format have been used on the web in a massive way. Its main utility continues to be the display of animated images and advertising banners for web pages, as it is the only format supported by old browsers that allows this effect.

However, much more efficient, complete and lightweight image formats have appeared, and GIF has gradually lost its popularity.

The Oxford University Press states that the format has become a tool with serious and applied applications in fields of investigation and journalism.

Animation exemplary cherry in flower.

Patents

Unisys, owner of the patent for the LZW algorithm used in the GIF format, has claimed royalties for its use for years. CompuServe, when developing the format, was unaware that the LZW algorithm was covered by a patent. Because of this, any program capable of opening or saving LZW-compressed GIF files had to meet its demands. It is necessary to emphasize that the GIF format can use other compression methods not covered by patents, such as the Run-length encoding method.

For this reason, royalty-free alternatives such as the PNG with higher image quality and better compression ratios appeared.

Gifs on social media

Social networks such as Google Plus (currently in disuse) that allow animations have made animated gifs once again a widely used format due to its ease of editing and little weight compared to videos.

Recently, social networks such as Telegram, Twitter and Facebook and WhatsApp have joined and have included the possibility of using GIF images in their services. Its popularity also reaches websites dedicated to this type of image such as GIPHY, which has privileged positions (322) in the Alexa ranking.

Platforms like Tumblr and Giphy are famous for allowing access to gifs from a myriad of topics, allowing users to upload, download and even create their own gifs.

Gifs on WhatsApp

Currently, GIFs have spread in such a way that they are even used to reply to messages, and this is the case of the instant messaging application WhatsApp. The application enabled the sending of these in the beta version v2.17.6 in a quick and easy way: it is about opening the emoticon tab on the left side of the screen. Once the selection of emoticons opens, at the bottom is the GIF symbol. When selected, you can choose from a large list of emoticons and there's even a search bar to find the most suitable GIF.

Gifs on Instagram

In February 2018, a new function was added to Instagram, specifically in the "Instagram stories". A new option was added where there were the options of location, hashtag, time, temperature, surveys... They did it through Giphy, a website that has been gathering these animations for a long time. It is in charge of controlling the GIF's, censoring those that are inappropriate and allowing those that do not have annoying content for users. Recently, a GIF bypassed the Giphy filter and a racist GIF surfaced. As a consequence, the use of GIF's in this social network was censored. Once they ensured that another level of moderation had been added to the filter and they took the necessary measures so that it did not happen again, the use of GIF's on Instagram was allowed again.

GIFs on Telegram

The GIF feature in Telegram was added in 2016. Initially it was with the @gif bot and later within the attachment options. The content sharing service is Giphy and uses MP4 encoding.

GIFs in communication

Although we have the option of transmitting the same idea with a small video, or with a phrase, a GIF has some technical advantages that should be taken into account: it streamlines communication, it can be reproduced immediately, it facilitates visual retention, and it produces a emotional impact.^{[citation needed]}

GIFs in the media

The first magazine to dare to publish a cover that included an animated gif was the North American TIME, which after the presentation by Apple of its new iPhone and Apple Watch models on September 2014, built a cover around an article that told us about how Apple is invading our bodies. The image that was chosen to illustrate said article in its digital versions was that of a human wrist on which graphics and numbers blinked: a GIF. His version on paper was the same but without movement. A few days after this publication, on September 29, 2014, the New Yorker magazine launched an animated cover on its website and mobile app. The image consisted simply of a New York taxi with the Empire State Building in the background and a few drops of rain running down the screen.

Today, for example, readers of all the international editions of the Huffington Post are used to news stories that include GIFS and their appearance on the front page. Even more traditional media such as The New York Times have worked with them.