[pdftex] Image transparency

[Christopher S. Swingley]

Wendy,

> What is wrong with jpegs or gifs?

Because of their compression algorithm jpegs are only really
appropriate for photographic images.  Figures and text look remarkably
poor.  JPEG is also a lossy format so every time you edit an image,
you can lose more quality from the image.

The problem with GIF images is that Unisys and IBM own a patent on the
LZW compression algorithm that is used with GIF images.  Unisys has
been quite active in pursuing their rights concerning this patent.
This pursuit reached it's high (or low) point when Unisys threatened
to take action against web sites that displayed GIF images that were
produced using software that wasn't licensed for LZW compression.
You can get more information at http://www.gnu.org and many other
places.

Chris
-- 
Christopher S. Swingley         930 Koyukuk Drive
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