png - Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format
Contents
Description
PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is an extensible file format for the lossless, portable, well-compressed
storage of raster images. PNG provides a patent-free replacement for GIF, and can also replace many
common uses of TIFF. Indexed-color, grayscale, and truecolor images are supported, plus an optional alpha
channel. Sample depths range from 1 to 16 bits.
PNG is designed to work well in online viewing applications, such as the World Wide Web, so it is fully
streamable with a progressive display option. PNG is robust, providing both full file integrity checking
and fast, simple detection of common transmission errors. Also, PNG can store gamma and chromaticity
data for improved color matching on heterogeneous platforms.
Name
png - Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format
See Also
libpng(3), zlib(3), deflate(5), and zlib(5)
PNG Specification (Third Edition), June 2025:
https://www.w3.org/TR/2025/REC-png-3-20250624/
PNG Specification (Second Edition), November 2003:
https://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-PNG-20031110/
PNG 1.2 Specification, August 1999:
https://www.libpng.org/pub/png/spec/1.2/
PNG 1.1 Specification, December 1998:
https://www.libpng.org/pub/png/spec/1.1/
PNG 1.0 Specification, October 1996:
RFC 2083
https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2083.txt
or W3C Recommendation
https://www.w3.org/TR/REC-png-961001
