True-Color GIF

Stumbled, was very surprised:

True Color GIF image
(32697 colors, 184565 bytes)



Quantized GIF image
(256 colors, 54197 bytes)

')
Dithered GIF image
(101 colors, 48069 bytes)


Three images demonstrate the difference between the 32697 color spectrum and its quantization up to 256 and dithering up to 101. All three GIF images. All three meet the GIF89A format specification, as published by Compuserve (and all three without compression).
The difference is that the first image was created using the ANGIF library, directly from the data buffer of the program that created the true color spectrum in a 217x217px image.

The erroneous view that the GIF has a limit of 256 colors probably dates back to 80'm, when video cards, for the most part, did not support more than 256 colors.
Sharing pictures became increasingly popular among BBS and Internet users, so a variety of viewers were quickly written.

No one tried to create an image larger than 256 colors, because almost anywhere they could not see, the exception was only expensive graphic stations.

All converters in GIF used various ways to cut the number of colors to 256. And all GIFs consisted of only one image block, despite the fact that the GIF standard in some way does not limit the number of blocks.
But since there was no point in using more than 256 colors, there was no point in using more than one block.

This practice is rooted in IT culture and in the end, everyone knew that GIF does not support more than 256 colors.

In fact , the programs used to generate GIF did not support more than 1 block, and therefore could not cope with more than 256 colors. The first image shows that the GIF can still be more than 256 color.

But, the more colors, the larger the file size. Each image block has its own header and color table, in addition to poor compression. And in the case of ANGIF, there is no compression at all (due to patent restrictions, LZW cannot be screwed).
Thus,> 256 color gif starts to gain weight very quickly. If there is no special need (for example, you need to show a truecolor image in the browser with non-understanding PNGs), truecolor GIF should not be used.

Using more than 256 colors in a GIF is a bad idea, in most cases, and should be limited to certain cases where the huge 'weight' is not terrible.
The statement that the format of GIF images is limited to 256 colors is wrong.

UPD # 1: bolk 'note about trying to create truecolor gif animations , written Aug. 2011
UPD # 2: The last change on the source page of the translation was Oct. 2006, and ANGIF first rough beta release dated Jan 2001.
UPD # 3: Lebedev in 1998 wrote about this in terms of web design