The difference between JPG and JPEG file formats

What is JPEG? #

JPEG is a file for­mat that pro­vi­des the abili­ty to archi­ve and store digi­tal images. It is the most com­mon image file for­mat used by digi­tal came­ras and other image cap­tu­re devices. It sup­ports 16,777,216 colors, each with 8 bits in the RGB color model.

What is JPG? #

The­re is no real dif­fe­rence bet­ween JPEG and JPG. JPG is the abbre­via­ti­on of JPEG, becau­se the ear­lier Win­dows ver­si­ons could only hand­le file exten­si­ons with a maxi­mum of 3 let­ters. The­r­e­fo­re, even today JPEG images are often saved with the exten­si­on .jpg in order not to cau­se pro­blems with older sys­tems.

So the only dif­fe­rence is the spel­ling.

More important information about JPEG/JPG: #

The maxi­mum size that is sup­port­ed is 65,535×65,535 pixels. When saving, the size of the image is redu­ced by about 50–75%. This means that the file size is smal­ler than the ori­gi­nal size, but at the same time it also results in fas­ter loa­ding time on web pages. Howe­ver, the file for­mat is not sui­ta­ble for images with sharp edges, as the colors in the image blend tog­e­ther. (The PNG for­mat is bet­ter sui­ted for this, as it stores the indi­vi­du­al pixels).