The [[Animated GIF]] image format is made to display a maximum of 256 colors in one image.  When an image containing more than 256 colors is saved as a GIF, the color limitation of the GIF format creates artifacts (defects) such as [[dithering]] (e.g. post #720057) or [[color banding]] (e.g. the background of post #76332).

Note that despite artifacting in high-color images, GIFs have legitimate uses, such as for [[pixel art]], low-color [[Oekaki]] images, and animated images.

h4. See also

* [[tag group:image composition]]
gif artifacts