PNG or GIF?

I have absolutely no idea where to ask this question, so I've come here for help. I like to make sprites, but I've been saving all of them in the GIF format. It has come to my attention that PNG can also do transparencies and animations, but I can only save my animations in GIF anyway (I use Jasc Animation Shop). If this is all painfully obvious to you guys, I'll just say sorry in advance, but I've just had to learn as I go.

Anyway, I have tested both formats out, but the only difference seems to be file size. Which format is best for saving transparencies? I've tried to read up on the differences, but every single god damn article is in crazy nerd talk, so it tends to go over my head at times. I hope someone might respond here.

>>12
LOL PSP

Also, as the difference in a low-colour GIF example and the comparable PNG version is often only a matter of 10-20%, even in your examples, no, I don't think it matters that much about the size difference. It's an advantage, but one that becomes less and less important when many websites are being designed for broadband connections, where a 5kb PNG isn't going to make much of a difference from a 7kb GIF except on browsers that don't support the PNG right. (Did you notice that IE4-IE6 gets the gamma or something wrong and so the colours in even non-transparent PNGs aren't reproduced properly, too?)

Also the IE workarounds are fucking horrible from a hacky shitty code standpoint and not very many people use them. Again, are your two saved kilobytes worth the effort (and precious bytes of ASCII characters!!) if you have to code in that horrible DirectX filter override thing into each of your pages? Oh yeah okay just block the most popular browser on the internet, that'll really show those MICRO$HIT assholes! MORAN.

PNG is a better format but if you're doing something that GIF supports (low colour, no need for transparency) it's not a bad idea to consider GIF, as it still has the advantage of being more widely supported.