A File format is a structure that defines how information is stored in the file and how that information is displayed on the monitor.

There are different file formats:

a)BMP:

• BMP images are developed by Microsoft can save both monochrome as well as colour images.
• The quality of bmp images is very good
• Eg:computer wallpapers,the documents saved in paintbrush are BMP images.

b)TIFF:

• TIFF is the wellknown format developed in 1986.
• Its many versions are standard image for a bit-mapped graphics image.
• TIFF is data compression technique for monochrome as well as colour images.
• The usually occupy less space.
• Eg:Images seen on the internet sites are normally TIFF.

c)JPEG:

• Joint Photographic Expert Group is the name of the committee that developed ana image format which uses Compression algorithm.
• JPEG images are compressed image which occupy very little space.
• It is based on DCT.
• They are lossy images hence the quality of images are not that good as BMP.
• Eg: Natural images. Aithough these formats differ in technical details,they share structural similarities.

Fig: The structure of information encoded in an image file.

The image file consists of two parts:

(1)Header: Gives us the information about the kind of image

(2)Image data:Data of image.