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Know Your File Type!
.GIF
The .GIF file type can be very useful for many types of graphics. It has a palette of only 256 colors, which doesn't sound like much until you realize that your image may not even be using that many colors. For instance, if you are making a logo for your website with only two colors, why do you need a large palette? This file type is great for images using large blocks of solid colors, but it's not so useful if your image is using a variety of shades. If there are many shades (such as in a photograph), they will become choppy or move to the next closest color. .GIFs allow you to use transparent backgrounds, which are very popular. They can also be animated. .GIFs aren't very good for photographic images, but they are incredibly useful for a wide variety of image types: graphics, backgrounds, borders, logos, LJ icons, and most small images. These files are quite versatile and useful!
.JPG
.JPG files work by using compression to get rid of "unimportant" image data. This may not sound like a good thing at first - losing data in a file?! - but this effectively leaves you with a file that it is much smaller in size, and can be transferred quickly. Fast transfer is absolutely essential on websites, so sacrificing a little quality for a smaller size is a good thing. This file type is also a staple on the internet; it is widely supported, so everyone can see it on your website. This format is excellent for photographic images and images with a large number of different colors. It is not very good for images with just a few colors, or with large areas of a single color - large blocks of color will look blurred in .JPG images.
.PNG
.PNG is a newer file type that is still growing in popularity. Unlike .JPG images, this is a "lossless" file type, so there is no loss of image data. The image will look just like it did when you made it, which means that it can look very smooth. Like .GIFs, this file type also supports transparency. Unfortunately, the file size of .PNGs is much larger, and that can mean slow loading time on websites. This file type is also not supported on many old browsers.
.BMP
.BMP files are really only practical for Windows wallpapers, and nothing else. They are not good at all to use on websites. These files don't support any kind of compression (getting rid of "unimportant" image data), so they can be extremely large. They are also not supported by many browsers. I strongly advise against using .BMP files on the internet for any reason.
.ART
.ART files are unique to AOL (America Online). AOL compresses images into this file format in order to conserve bandwidth. There is absolutely nothing good about this file format, and many AOL users choose to disable this "feature" of AOL, so that images show up in better formats. This file type is only supported by AOL, so it won't show up if you don't use AOL. Images look terrible in this format.