Lossless Coppression And Lossy Compression

• Data vs. Information:
Data is raw, unorganized facts that need to be processed in order to be able to be understood. Data can be seen as simple and useless until it's organized. In addition, data refers to discrete items, for example, each student's test score is considered as one piece of data.
However, when data is processed, organized or presented in a given context in order to make it useful, it can be then called information. So information is the result of the data that is processed and hence has a meaning to be conveyed. For example, when we say that the average score of a class is 85/100, this conveys information with a meaning that shows the average score of a selected class analyzed from a given set of data. (Diffen, 2011).

Lossy Compression:
Lossless and lossy compressions are terms that are used to describe whether during the compression of a file, all of the original data can be recovered when the file is uncompressed or not.
In lossless compression, every single piece of data that was originally in the file remains after the file is uncompressed and all of the original information is completely restored. This is the technique that is most useful when losing words or financial data could result in creating a disastrous problem. The Graphics Interchange File (GIF) is an image format that is used on the Web and which provides lossless compression.
Nevertheless, lossy compression reduces a file by eliminating certain information in a permanent manner, especially redundant information. When the file is uncompressed, only a part of the original information will be still available, even though the user may not be able to notice this at all. Lossy compression is basically used for video and sounds compression, where a certain amount of information loss will not be detected by most users and will not affect the efficiency of the video and sound itself. The JPEG image file is an image that uses lossy compression. (Rouse,