4 ms·

is JPEG-XL really an upgrade over HEIC?

cornstalks 2y ago
Yes, not being HEVC is a huge plus given HEVC’s patent drama/prices And quality wise, JPEG XL is definitely better
MBCook 2y ago
Section in the article: “The iPhone 16 family could let you shoot in JPEG-XL” I’m with you. No normal person is waiting for this. Are any techies? Like maybe 2? The article says the JPEG would be a third the size they are now. OK. That’s nice. But only 12.5% of Internet users can seem ‘em. All of ‘em Apple users. https://caniuse.com/?search=jpeg-xl https://caniuse.com/?search=jpeg-xl So what’s the point? Just use HEIC. It’s supported by the exact same browsers. All Safari and nothing else. This seems like a really sketchy rumor to me.
- viraptor 2y ago
  > The article says the JPEG would be a third the size they are now. OK. That’s nice. That's also significant $$$ when you're serving petabytes of image traffic every month. Even if it's limited to iOS.
- somethingsidont 2y ago
  > But only 12.5% of Internet users can seem ‘em. All of ‘em Apple users. That's a positive for Apple. "Why can't I view the new family pics?" "Oh mom you need to get an iPhone for that"
- eviks 2y ago
  You forgot that that 12.5% could change "overnight" if Google change their hostile stance, and adding it as a default in a very popular phone increases the chances of that happening, so add a few zeroes to that 2
aidenn0 2y ago
Yes.
ianburrell 2y ago
In addition to the compression, JPEG-XL has some nice features that make it better image format. It also does lossless compression. It does color spaces. One cool feature is that can losslessly convert JPEG into JPEG-XL. And back to JPEG. I can't tell if this applies to all or only converted ones, but it might make good source format and convert to JPEG on export.
- pizza 2y ago
  It applies to all JPEGs.
- duskwuff 2y ago
  > I can't tell if this applies to all or only converted ones JPEG-XL to JPEG is only lossless for JPEG-XL images which were upgraded from JPEG. Not all JPEG-XL images can even be represented as JPEG; in particular, images with more than three channels (like images with transparency, or images with CMYK color) or with multiple frames (like an animation) certainly can't.
  - eviks 2y ago
    What about those that can be represented? Is it possible to convert lpsslessly by losing some compression efficiency or still only upgraded can be downgraded?
    - pornel 2y ago
      JPEG XL has many compression modes inside, and the lossless JPEG roundtrip works only for one of them that was specifically designed to hold old JPEG's data. You can't take an arbitrary JXL file and turn it into a JPEG without lossy recompression. The old-JPEG-preserving compression mode also isn't the best that JXL can do. It's better than the old JPEG, but not as good as JXL using all the new bells and whistles.
jerryX 2y ago
HEIC is paid, inferior, unpopular ... while JPEG XL is finally the long term replacement of ~30 year old JPEG.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Doubtful JPG will ever be replaced. It hits a sweet spot between implementation simplicity, (adjustable) visual fidelity, and ubiquity. Even gifs persist because of they're grandfathered into auto play, despite being worse in every way than alternatives.
modeless 2y ago
Yes, the progressive rendering is really cool, lossless mode is better, lossless recompression of JPEGs is a cool feature, it's faster, it supports larger images (without tiling) with more channels and higher bit depths.
ksec 2y ago
For images at low bit per pixel, HEIC is actually quite a bit better than JPEG-XL current encoder. I wouldn't say really an upgrade technically speaking, I would put them on same level with XL have some additional interesting feature. But considering getting HEIC included in other system seems to be difficult due to patents or other reasons. JPEG-XL seems to be the best middle ground in everything. I am still hoping there could be additional work on JXL in terms of low bit per pixel improvement and encoding / decoding resource usage. Especially in the lossless front.
- aidenn0 2y ago
  JXL is better than HEIC at high qualities though, which is probably how you want to save the output from your camera.
- eviks 2y ago
  From various reviews I've seen, HEIC is not better, it looks "nicer" by losing fidelity for some type of picture
Pikamander2 2y ago
Compared to the stark differences between BMP/JPG/PNG/GIF, there's a ton of overlap between WEBP/HEIC/AVIF/JPEGXL. Naturally, some types of images tend to compress better with some formats than others, and then you may have to take into account things like the desired quality level, encoding time, etc. https://cloudinary.com/blog/time_for_next_gen_codecs_to_dethrone_jpeg https://cloudinary.com/blog/time_for_next_gen_codecs_to_deth... Realistically, any of those four new formats would be fine for 99% of the images that exist, but it would still be nice for every browser to support them all so that web developers can choose their favorite format. Although, on the flip side, the drawback of having so many formats floating around is that software developers have to spend more time supporting it all. Even trillion dollar companies like Microsoft are seemingly in no rush to make sure that formats like WebP are as well integrated into their software as JPG/PNG were.
sunflowerfly 2y ago
HEIC was designed for motion pictures where smoothing at the cost of detail is acceptable. From an image detail standpoint, yes.

Yes, not being HEVC is a huge plus given HEVC’s patent drama/prices And quality wise, JPEG XL is definitely better

Section in the article: “The iPhone 16 family could let you shoot in JPEG-XL” I’m with you. No normal person is waiting for this. Are any techies? Like maybe 2? The article says the JPEG would be a third the size they are now. OK. That’s nice. But only 12.5% of Internet users can seem ‘em. All of ‘em Apple users. https://caniuse.com/?search=jpeg-xl https://caniuse.com/?search=jpeg-xl So what’s the point? Just use HEIC. It’s supported by the exact same browsers. All Safari and nothing else. This seems like a really sketchy rumor to me.

viraptor 2y ago
> The article says the JPEG would be a third the size they are now. OK. That’s nice. That's also significant $$$ when you're serving petabytes of image traffic every month. Even if it's limited to iOS.
somethingsidont 2y ago
> But only 12.5% of Internet users can seem ‘em. All of ‘em Apple users. That's a positive for Apple. "Why can't I view the new family pics?" "Oh mom you need to get an iPhone for that"
eviks 2y ago
You forgot that that 12.5% could change "overnight" if Google change their hostile stance, and adding it as a default in a very popular phone increases the chances of that happening, so add a few zeroes to that 2

aidenn0 2y ago

Yes.

ianburrell 2y ago

In addition to the compression, JPEG-XL has some nice features that make it better image format. It also does lossless compression. It does color spaces. One cool feature is that can losslessly convert JPEG into JPEG-XL. And back to JPEG. I can't tell if this applies to all or only converted ones, but it might make good source format and convert to JPEG on export.

pizza 2y ago
It applies to all JPEGs.
duskwuff 2y ago
> I can't tell if this applies to all or only converted ones JPEG-XL to JPEG is only lossless for JPEG-XL images which were upgraded from JPEG. Not all JPEG-XL images can even be represented as JPEG; in particular, images with more than three channels (like images with transparency, or images with CMYK color) or with multiple frames (like an animation) certainly can't.
- eviks 2y ago
  What about those that can be represented? Is it possible to convert lpsslessly by losing some compression efficiency or still only upgraded can be downgraded?
  - pornel 2y ago
    JPEG XL has many compression modes inside, and the lossless JPEG roundtrip works only for one of them that was specifically designed to hold old JPEG's data. You can't take an arbitrary JXL file and turn it into a JPEG without lossy recompression. The old-JPEG-preserving compression mode also isn't the best that JXL can do. It's better than the old JPEG, but not as good as JXL using all the new bells and whistles.

jerryX 2y ago

HEIC is paid, inferior, unpopular ... while JPEG XL is finally the long term replacement of ~30 year old JPEG.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
Doubtful JPG will ever be replaced. It hits a sweet spot between implementation simplicity, (adjustable) visual fidelity, and ubiquity. Even gifs persist because of they're grandfathered into auto play, despite being worse in every way than alternatives.

modeless 2y ago

Yes, the progressive rendering is really cool, lossless mode is better, lossless recompression of JPEGs is a cool feature, it's faster, it supports larger images (without tiling) with more channels and higher bit depths.

ksec 2y ago

For images at low bit per pixel, HEIC is actually quite a bit better than JPEG-XL current encoder. I wouldn't say really an upgrade technically speaking, I would put them on same level with XL have some additional interesting feature. But considering getting HEIC included in other system seems to be difficult due to patents or other reasons. JPEG-XL seems to be the best middle ground in everything. I am still hoping there could be additional work on JXL in terms of low bit per pixel improvement and encoding / decoding resource usage. Especially in the lossless front.

aidenn0 2y ago
JXL is better than HEIC at high qualities though, which is probably how you want to save the output from your camera.
eviks 2y ago
From various reviews I've seen, HEIC is not better, it looks "nicer" by losing fidelity for some type of picture

Pikamander2 2y ago

Compared to the stark differences between BMP/JPG/PNG/GIF, there's a ton of overlap between WEBP/HEIC/AVIF/JPEGXL. Naturally, some types of images tend to compress better with some formats than others, and then you may have to take into account things like the desired quality level, encoding time, etc. https://cloudinary.com/blog/time_for_next_gen_codecs_to_dethrone_jpeg https://cloudinary.com/blog/time_for_next_gen_codecs_to_deth... Realistically, any of those four new formats would be fine for 99% of the images that exist, but it would still be nice for every browser to support them all so that web developers can choose their favorite format. Although, on the flip side, the drawback of having so many formats floating around is that software developers have to spend more time supporting it all. Even trillion dollar companies like Microsoft are seemingly in no rush to make sure that formats like WebP are as well integrated into their software as JPG/PNG were.

sunflowerfly 2y ago

HEIC was designed for motion pictures where smoothing at the cost of detail is acceptable. From an image detail standpoint, yes.