JPEG XL: Next-Generation of Image Format for the Internet [video]
youtube.comSlides: https://www.slideshare.net/cloudinarymarketing/imagecon-2019...
Background: JPEG XL is a combination of Cloudinary's FUIF [1] (successor of FLIF [2]) and Google's Pik [3].
Committee Draft (Aug 2019): https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.03565
Technical Details: https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of...
Features / Goals:
- high quality compression (> 60% over JPEG-1)
- royalty-free with open source implementations available from the start
- versatile: supports alpha transparency, high bit depth (16-bit), lossless compression, animations
- progressive decoding / "responsive by design"
- legacy-friendly: reversible transcoding of JPEGs with 22% size reduction (demo available [4])
Comparisons:
- JPEG 2000, JPEG XR: only marginal compression improvements
- WebP: limited (8-bit, 4:2:0), no progressive decoding
- BPG/HEIF (HEVC): patent-encumbered (not royalty-free), no progressive decoding, complex
- AVIF (AV1): no progressive decoding, complex, slow?
[1] https://cloudinary.com/blog/introducing_fuif_responsive_imag...
From the video I was expecting even higher compression than HEIF, but > 60% over JPEG-1 seems to be about the same as HEIF.
And what are the downside? Whenever something sounds too good to be true it often means we are overlooking something.
There is a Japanese independent (simple) comparison between av1, bpg, WebP and pik for use in photo compression. Pik won it. JPEG XL is an improved from pik.