When is JPG better than BMP?
JPG images use lossy compression, resulting in smaller and highly web-responsive images, while BMP images are lossless, larger, and load slower on websites. Hence, JPG images are ideal for creating and storing large email attachments, photos, and web images on storage mediums with limited space.
The benefits of JPG images, compared to BMPs, include significantly smaller files, faster loading times, less storage space demands, superior user experience, and web optimization.
When is BMP better than JPG?
BMP images use lossless compression, resulting in larger, very detailed, and high-quality images, while JPG images lossy compression deletes some file data, making them smaller but of lower quality. Thus, BMP’s precise image details make them ideal for graphics, web design, and medical imaging.
The benefits of BMP images include info-rich images, easy editing, resaving without losing image quality, and simplified pixel series, which allow easy writing and reading using different software and programs.
BMP versus JPG Table Comparison
| Variable/Factor | BMP | JPG |
| Transparency | Does not support transparency or alpha channel | Does not support transparency or alpha channel |
| File Size | Lossless and relatively larger files than JPG | Lossy compressed and smaller than BMP files. |
| Image Quality | Higher quality images than JPG images | High-quality but lower compared to BMP images. |
| Performance | Larger and loads slower than JPG. | Smaller and loads faster than BMP. |
| Structure | The raster file format starts with a header, information header, pixel data, and color table. | Raster graphics begin with a binary value of '0xFFD8' and end with a binary value of '0xFFD9'. |
| Animation | No inherent support for animation. | No inherent support for animation or lively content |
| Storage | Larger and needs more storage space than JPG. | Smaller and needs less storage space than BMP. |
| Compression | Supports lossless compression with RLE. | Uses lossy compression DCT and Huffman Coding |
| Browser Support | Widely supported by almost all browsers. | Widely supported by nearly all web browsers. |
Differences and similarities between JPG and BMP images
The above table compares JPG versus BMP in terms of technical features and capabilities. The formats share similarities in browser support, transparency, and animation support. They differ in web performance, storage needs, file size, image quality, structure, and compression techniques.
Transparency
JPG and BMP do not support transparency. The BMP file format lacks advanced features or support layers that enable it to support transparency. However, it promotes additional color spaces and alpha channels.
In contrast, JPG does not allow users to apply transparent backgrounds to the created images. Non-rectangular logos or graphics featuring many texts cannot function in JPG format. The transparent pixels are filled with black and white, which are solid colors or opaque.
File Size
JPG files are significantly smaller than BMP files. BMP retains as much image information and detail as possible through lossless compression, while JPG automatically loses image data during lossy compression. JPG supports a file size limit of 65,535 x 65,535 pixels, which equals four gigapixels.
BMP, on the other hand, is a high-quality image format with a maximum amount of detail. Its maximum file size limit is 32,767×32,767 pixels, with 4GB for every pixel, which largely depends on the format version. It has dimensional restraints based on how it handles individual pixels.
Image Quality
BMP and JPG image file types are high-quality formats. However, BMP has an edge over JPG in terms of quality standards. BMP stores and displays high-quality images, from simple 1-bit monochrome images to 4-bit, 8-bit, 16-bit, and 24-bit accurate color images, while JPG only supports 8-bit color.
BMP images are superior to JPG images because BMP preserves all image data during compression. It uses efficient lossless RLE compression to ensure no lost image data, while lossy JPG deletes specific file info, resulting in compression artifacts and quality dilapidation.
Performance
The lossy JPG images are comparatively smaller than the lossless BMP images. Hence, the highly detailed and larger BMP files load slower on websites than the smaller JPG files. The smaller JPG file sizes increase website responsiveness, consume fewer bytes, and enhance user experience than BMP files.
The BMP image format preserves larger, data-rich images to offer higher-quality visuals than JPGs. However, it is less effective regarding web performance compared to the flexible JPG format, which is ideal for web imagery, logos, and graphics.
Structure
BMP and JPG are raster-based image file types. However, it is difficult to compare their structural components or designs. BMP stores bitmap digital images independently based on display devices like graphics adapters. Its structure comprises a header, information header, color table, and pixel data.
The BMP’s header contains file size, type, and the Device-autonomous bitmap file layout. The information header specifies the BMP file's color format, compression type, and dimensions. On the other hand, the color table comprises as many bitmap elements as colors within a BMP file.
In contrast, a JPG file comprises a sequence of segments starting with a marker with many binary OxFFXX data. Within a JPG file extension, the first marker has a binary value, 'OxFFD8', and ends with a binary value, 'OxFFD9'. The makers define the time of the JPG data or information. A 0x00 byte is inserted after any 0xFF byte before the next byte within the entropy-compressed data.
The insertion prevents framing errors because there will be no markers where they are not intended to be or exist. Decoders tend to skip the 0x00 byte. Based on the structural components, BMP and JPG are dissimilar, as each format starts and ends differently.
Animation
Neither JPG nor BMP have inherent support for animation or animated content. Although the BMP format does not support animation, its digital bitmap images enable editing and manipulation, which can be used to create animations in formats that support lively content.
Unlike the JPG image file type, BMP files can be edited with higher fidelity due to less compression. This makes them suitable for pre-processing images before creating animations in other formats. Thus, both formats are hardly preferred for animation; most designers and developers use GIFs.
Storage
JPG files are automatically lossy compressed, while BMP files preserve all image information with lossless compression. As a result, JPG images are relatively smaller than BMP images, and BMPs consume more bytes, storage space, and memory than JPGs.
However, irrespective of storage space demands and bandwidth consumption, BMP and JPG files can be stored indefinitely in File Systems, Folders, Cloud, Base64 Encoding, Content Delivery Networks, and Hard Drives, subject to handling processes, storage mediums, and conditions.
Compression
JPG uses lossy compression, while BMP uses lossless compression. The BMP image file type supports lossless compression with a run-length encoding (RLE) algorithm to compress 4-bit and 8-bit bitmaps. Its lossless compression can be encoded or absolute, resulting in larger and higher-quality images.
In contrast, JPG’s lossy compression reduces the image size by deleting unnecessary data. The compression method assumes a block-based compression, where subsampling color data reduces the original file data using Discrete Cosine Transform coefficients and Huffman Coding.
As a result, BMP can recover all image information when uncompressed, which is impossible with JPG. Thus, for smaller and lower-quality images, choose JPG format. Otherwise, select the BMP file type for larger, higher-quality images.
Browser Support
BMP and JPG have a rich history, dating back to the 1990s when the two image file types were created. Over the past three decades, they have become famous versatile file formats that enjoy universal support across almost all browsers.
Both formats are compatible and widely supported by Discord, Vivaldi, Brave, Safari, Firefox, Opera, Microsoft Edge, and Chrome, among other older and new web browsers. Nonetheless, BMP is supported by all versions of Internet Explorer, while JPG is not compatible with Internet Explorer 6.
Convert JPG to BMP or BMP to JPG
BMP images are preferred to JPG since they are very detailed, larger, and precise and preserve all image information, making them ideal for medical imaging. Use convertjack to convert JPG to BMP without creating an account.
JPG images are smaller than BMP and consume fewer bytes when shared online, enhancing web responsiveness. Convertjack is the most effective BMP to JPG converter, helping users generate images suitable for architectural blueprints, web charts, logos, illustrations, and graphics.