Well... the pics are not ment for web if that's the case. Those
pics are indeed on a website, and it would be good for ppl to
have less d/l time and images that look smoother... besides,
if they want lossless for d/l, they should go with Portable
Network Graphics (png) lossless compression. So THERE!
GIF has only got 256 colors as well, and should be used for
images containing larger areas of the same color (that's often
the rule I use, and it works.. I usually know very well what kind
of image will be most compressed and best looking in a particular
format. But with most images one can get the best quality if
compressed to jpeg, max quality... because gif only has 256 colors.
On the other hand, gifs can be used to make animations, and
also make images with transparent areas (+interlacing). But for
ordinary photographs - jpeg is clearly the choice... if not png,
which becomes more like a mix between jpeg and gif I feel.
But as a conclusion: If they wanted lossless images that are also
smoother, I'd choose png even though u usually get bigger files
than with jpeg.... but I would smoothen the pics a bit first, though