May 6, 2024
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5 min read
For the past 6 months I’ve been digging into the new image file formats, and JPEG XL looks super interesting. It seems to be the first file format that is capable of doing everything – from super high-end, high bit depth capture, through the edit process (losslessly or lossy), and then all the way to print if needed. I assumed AVIF would best it, but it definitely doesn’t on the mid range to higher end of the quality spectrum. AVIF is also a no-go for lossless images – it works, but compression isn’t great.
I also love the default encoder cjxl – it hadn’t really dawned on me before that you could have another dimension when encoding – ‘effort’. How long can I spend compressing this file? Of course it’s obvious in hindsight, and video codecs have done this for ages – just hadn’t dawned on me for images. I have some ideas about how we can really show off the quality/size vs some of the competing solutions.
The team at Fractional was looking for a few passion projects, and we thought this would be a good fit (given my expertise in the area). We’ll work on this when there are breaks with the paying customers.
Today, I reached out to Jon Sneyers, one of the key figures behind JPEG XL, to offer our help with the marketing side of things. The current JPEG XL website is functional but could use some design love. Jon described it as “dev style” – quickly put together to provide more information than what’s available on the official jpeg.org site. This presents an exciting opportunity for our team to bring a fresh, user-friendly design to the JPEG XL community.
Jon was totally down with the idea.
Our goal is to create a website that not only looks great but also effectively communicates the benefits and technical aspects of JPEG XL to both developers and end-users. We're looking forward to presenting our ideas to Jon and getting his feedback on how we can best serve the JPEG XL community.
Stay tuned for updates on our progress as we work to give JPEG XL the online presence it deserves!