Finally. I was wondering how long it would take them. For scanned documents with OCR, it makes a lot of sense. At same quality you get significantly smaller files, especially when looking at above 300dpi.
JPEG keep getting extensions like ultra HDR (which really is a hack more than anything else), XYB JPEG (significantly higher compression efficiency than classic jpeg), but all of these habe very limited support tbh, hence introducing jpeg xl seems more logical.
The only downside of jpeg xl to me is that it doesn’t support gain maps (yet?[1]). Without gain map, you have limited control over how the SDR image looks like, which can be very problematic in environments where you don’t know what the hardware presenting the image will be in the end.
But the list of upsides is so long:
* higher bit depth
* native HDR (no hack)
* better compression (still better than xyb jpeg, at high resolutions, the difference becomes huge)
* Bit depth independence (ok, that’s better compression again, I admit)
* Better at Multispectral/hyperspectral imagery with lots of sub-images.
It is becoming the preferred format on so many levels:
* iPhones use it’s encoding (not the file format itself) in its RAW files.
* Medicine scanners are starting to use it (and that’s not really an area that is fast moving when it comes to software…)
* now pdf (also not really known for being a break-neck-evolution environment…)
* Safari supports it as well
I really do not understand why it’s taking so long for Chromium. I do believe they will support it at some point, as jxl-rs [2] is progressing, but really, it already took too long.
[1] https://github.com/libjxl/libjxl/discussions/3505
[2] https://github.com/libjxl/jxl-rs
