PNG - Portable Network Graphic

The Portable Network Graphics (PNG) is a raster or pixel format developed as a successor to the lossless compressing GIF, which was subject to license demands due to the LZW algorithm. However, unlike GIF, PNG does not allow animations. It is perhaps the most widely used graphic format on the web because it offers strong compression while supporting transparency, cutouts, and alpha channels, making it more versatile for internet applications than, for instance, JPEG. One drawback is that it was designed for web applications, as its development omitted the CMYK color concept. While metadata can be integrated, it does not conform to common standards like EXIF or IPTC. As a result, PNG cannot serve as a replacement for TIFF