The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a bitmap image format that was developed by CompuServe in 1987. It has since become widely used on the World Wide Web due to its portability and support for animation. GIF images use a lossless compression algorithm called Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW), which makes them suitable for images with solid colors and sharp, well-defined edges, such as logos, graphics, and simple diagrams. However, LZW compression is less effective for photographs and images with continuous color variations. GIFs support a limited color palette of up to 256 colors, which can result in color banding or posterization in images with a wider range of colors. One of the key features of GIF is its support for animation. Multiple frames can be stored within a single GIF file, and these frames can be displayed sequentially to create a looping animation. This feature has made GIFs a popular format for creating short, animated clips and memes. GIFs also support transparency, allowing parts of the image to be made transparent, revealing the background behind the image. This is useful for creating images with irregular shapes or for layering images on top of each other.