What does the image extension .png stand for?

Question

And more importantly, how can I open it on my PC? I tried to use one labelled such for my desktop background and it didn't work. Do I need a special program or something?

Answer 1

PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is a bitmap image format that employs lossless data compression. PNG was created to both improve upon and replace the GIF format with an image file format that does not require a patent license to use.



Macromedia Fireworks uses PNG as its native file format but by default also stores metadata for layers, animation, text and effects. Such files should not be distributed directly. Fireworks can instead export as an optimised PNG without the extra metadata for use on webpages etc.



GIF is still more widely used than PNG, partially due to misconceptions but also for several real reasons:



* On very old browsers such as Internet Explorer 3, PNG support may not be available

* GIF images support animation, which is often used in Internet advertising.



The full feature set of PNG is not often used on the web, for several reasons:



* Internet Explorer 4 can crash on images containing metadata (e.g. Macromedia Fireworks's native PNG file format)

* Versions of Internet Explorer up to 6 do not support native alpha-channel transparency (although a JavaScript fix is possible for clients using IE 5.5 to 6 [7], but that's only working for inline images, not for background images).

* Internet Explorer 7 has limited support for PNG transparency. It displays the wrong colors within images and thus does not have 100% compatibility.



Apple's Safari, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera have full PNG compatibility.



So to use PNG file as background, just use a image viewer/editing software that do support PNG and save it as other format like JPG/GIF.



If your favorite image viewer/editing software don't support PNG, I recommand use IrfanView viewer (one of the most popular viewer out there). But most of the newer viewer should have PNG support.



http://www.irfanview.com/

Answer 2

Png is a compressed file format but it is lossless (ie the image is not affected by the compression). It is good to use if you need to keep a perfect quality image but don't need to compress as small as say a jpeg. Png can also have a transparency, the same as a gif, but without the colour loss. In web design the png is useful, but IE6 (and possibly other IE browsers?) have problems rendering certain png files.

Answer 3

no, its just a simple image file that should be opened in microsoft image viewer





PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is a bitmap image format that employs lossless data compression. PNG was created to both improve upon and replace the GIF format with an image file format that does not require a patent license to use. PNG is officially pronounced as "ping" (/pɪŋ/ in IPA), but it is often just spelled out — possibly to avoid confusion with the network tool ping. PNG is supported by the libpng reference library, a platform-independent library that contains C functions for handling PNG images.

Answer 4

Portable Network Graphics

Answer 5

It's Microsoft Office Picture Manager. It will open with Paint.

Answer 6

Portable Network Graphics ... you can view them with your browser or paint, but you cannot use them as your background... the way to do that is to open them in your browser or Paint, then Save As a JPEG or BMP file... then you can set it as your background.