It's not too late.

The current standard on the web is JPEG for photographic images. Everyone agrees that it's an inefficient standard in terms of quality for file size, and that its 8-bit RGB support isn't enough for higher dynamic range or transparency. So the different stakeholders have been exploring new modern formats for different things:

WEBP is open source and royalty free, and has wide support, especially by Google (who controls a major image search engine and the dominant web browser), and is more efficient than JPEG and PNG in lossy and lossless compression. It's 15 years old and is showing its age as we move towards cameras that capture better dynamic range than the 8-bit limits of webp (or JPEG for that matter). It's still being updated, so things like transparency have been added (but aren't supported by all webp software).

AVIF supports HDR and has even better file size efficiency than webp. It's also open source and royalty free, and is maintained by the Linux Foundation (for those who prefer a format controlled by a nonprofit). It supports transparency and animation out of the box, so it doesn't encounter the same partial support issues as webp. One drawback is that the AVIF format requires a bit more computational power to encode or decode.

HEIC is more efficient than JPEG, supports high bit depth and transparency, but is encumbered by patents so that support requires royalty payments. The only reason why it's in the conversation is because it has extensive hardware acceleration support by virtue of its reliance on the HEVC/h.265 codec, and because it's Apple's default image format for new pictures taken by its iPhone/iPad cameras.

JPEG XL has the best of all possible worlds. It supports higher bit depths, transparency, animation, lossless compression. It's open source and royalty free. And most importantly, it has a dedicated compression path for taking existing JPEG images and losslessly shrinking the file size. That's really important for the vast majority of digitally stored images, because people tend to only have the compressed JPEG version. The actual encoding and decoding is less computationally intensive than webp or avif. It's a robust enough standard for not just web images, but raw camera captures (potentially replacing DNG and similar formats), raw document scans and other captured imagery (replacing TIFF), and large scale printing (where TIFF is still often in the workflow).

So even as webp and avif and heic show up in more and more places, the constant push forward still allows JXL to compete on its own merits. If nothing else, JXL is the only drop in replacement where web servers can silently serve the JXL version of a file when supported, even if the "original" image uploaded to the site was in JPEG format, with basically zero drawbacks. But even on everything else, the technical advantages might support processing and workflows in JXL, from capture to processing to printing.

Teamwork makes þe dream work.

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