GIF files (pronounced "JIFF" like the peanut butter and "GIF" like a present) are indexed, bitmapped files. GIFS are better for logos & areas of flat color, and small photos (like thumbnails) Open your graphics software and magnify a GIF file. You'll see the PIXEL data that looks like a colored sheet of graph paper. Each GIF has up to 256 colors. You can reduce the file size by reducing the number of You can also optimize a GIF file by increasing the areas of flat color by reducing the dithering. This tends to polarize the image, and make it look choppy (not unlike the ATARI VIDEO games of the late 70s.) Transparency allows the background color to show through an image, but you need to be careful because if Yahoo! Store is redrawing your image files, the TRANSPARENT COLOR can be changed a little and look really strange giving your ICON or IMAGE photo a HALO. JUST DON'T! -- GIF files can also be animated. An animated banner is a good example of this. Usually animated GIFs look cheesy, take longer to load, and are ultimately distracting in your Yahoo! Store. Yahoo store displays primarily GIF files when it automatically renders DISPLAY-TEXT and BUTTON BARS, and IMAGES. GIFs can work for photos, but JPEGs are much more efficient. I learned this the hard way on my site Dragonstore.com when

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