Lossy compression is a technique utilized to reduce the size of a file by removing some of the information deemed less critical. This method is commonly applied in media formats, such as image and audio files, where a slight loss of quality might not be significantly perceptible to users. For example, in JPEG images, some color information is discarded to minimize file size, while in MP3 audio, certain sound frequencies that are less audible to human ears may be omitted.
The primary advantage of lossy compression is the substantial reduction in file size, which enables more efficient storage and faster transmission over networks. However, the trade-off is that the original quality cannot be perfectly restored once the information has been removed, which makes this method particularly suitable for applications where perfect fidelity is less critical than saving space.
In contrast, lossless compression preserves all the original data, ensuring that the file can be exactly reconstructed from the compressed state. While this approach is useful for text files or some image formats, it does not achieve the same level of file size reduction as lossy methods. Other terms like "Deflate" and "Run-Length Encoding" refer to specific algorithms or techniques within the broader categories of lossless or specific forms of data compression and do not directly describe the characteristic