A variant of the JPEG image compression format-the JPEG XL format will be upgraded before the end of the year. The inventor of the format said that JPEG XL will be free and open-source, and higher compression efficiency will help significantly reduce global bandwidth costs.
The original JPEG format was invented by the ISO organization in the 1980s and is currently the most widely used image compression format. However, due to the low compression efficiency of this format, with the rapid growth of Internet content, pressure on network bandwidth and device storage space has gradually emerged.
In order to meet this challenge, currently, the main popular formats include Google’s WEBP, and the HEIF format (extension HEIC), which has now been partially used, but there is still a long way to go.
The JPEG XL format can perform lossless compression on the basis of the existing JPEG, further reducing the size. A single JPEG XL file is stored on the server and can be quickly converted to a standard JPEG format when needed to meet the support of different clients. Not only that, but the format also provides greater convenience for photographers, supporting more than 8bit color depth, wide color gamut images, and HDR images.
In addition, it also supports large-size printing, panoramic photos, 360° photos, and storage of continuous shots. . The format is also optimized for the Web environment while meeting the needs of display on tablets and mobile phones.
JPEG XL also supports functions such as animation, alpha channel, multi-layer, thumbnail storage, etc., and is suitable for use scenarios such as professional galleries, social media, and cloud storage. The compression efficiency of this format can be increased from the current 20:1 to 50:1, and it supports fast decoding without hardware acceleration. Know more about this new image format on its official website.