What does PNG stand for?

PNG stands for portable network graphics. It is a file format used for graphics or pictures. PNG gives the most image detail of the major graphics formats, but it also results in large file sizes compared to GIF and JPEG formats.

The PNG format supports true color, a method of coloring pixels in an image that uses more than 16 million shades. For comparison, JPEG and GIF formats support only 256 colors. PNG images are also lossless, which means that they don't degrade in quality or lose quality during editing. This makes PNG the preferred format of many graphic designers and others who work closely with images.