Best file format for web page

I'm about to redo my webpage, and wondered if it is best, in terms of colour rendition to use .gif or .jpeg format? With .gif, would it perhaps be less desirable to download images as well??? I don't wish to stamp a huge watermark on my images.

Cheers,

Marli

What I do is:

Photos - Jpeg (for access to broader colour pallete and thereby quality)

Buttons, titles, etc - GIF because you can reduce the colour palette (when saving the GIF) to just the colours in your item thereby reducing size substantially.

PNG - anything i am not 100% decided on and may want to change around a lot.

JPGs have to be in sRGB color space, else the vast majority of browsers will get it wrong because they don't do color profile translation. If you've posted your AdobeRGB images on the web, and they look less contrasty, this is why.

PNG is good if you need something with more than 256 colors that cannot be compressed in a lossy way (image comparisons, etc.). It's also good for more than 256 colors, with transparency. It's also good if you're google and want to design the coolest road mapping software ever. (maps.google.com uses PNGs).

GIF is really bad for photos. Only use if your art is limited in colors, or if you need animation...

taking a tiny break to dial up from rangiroa,

eric