Comment by sroussey

5 hours ago

All my photos are HEIC. Why not just use what I have and not translate?

You should never transcode lossy source files because there is generation loss in quality.

There is still a lot of reason for Apple to switch from HEIC to JXL for photos going forward since HEIC is patent encumbered so it will never see widespread use.

  • Well, JpegXL does have one really cool feature: you can transcode jpeg to jpegxl (and back) losslessly. For jpeg to jpegxl it'll save something like 15-20% in size.

HEIC has a very messy patent situation around it which limits what tools work with it.

E.g. for official Windows support by Microsoft you need to buy the codec from the Microsoft App Store for $0.99

Formats that aim to be web standards should try not to be patent encumbered. There was a lesson to be learned from the Unisys debacle in the 1990s. If you don't want to reencode for the web, use a device that captures in a format that can be shared on the web.

Think about how many images large platforms deliver every day, and the benefits of saving bits on each of them.