GIF is ideal for maps, diagrams and other images with a small colour palette.
And not bad for illustrations such as comics. Anything with areas of flat colour.
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Why some camera manufacturers still haven't implement HEIF image
- Thread starter GutiWong
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And not bad for illustrations such as comics. Anything with areas of flat colour.
Hans Z
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Great illustration considering the limitations of the browser. For me on the iPhone and MacBook Pro screen, the difference between a JPEG and HEIF/HEIC is quite dramatic. So over time I believe it will be more appreciated as people gets access to better screens. When standards change it takes time.Interesting. I thought Firefox (at least some version of it) supports HDR. It's hard to illustrate HDR without HDR, but here's an attempt. I took photos of two of the pictures there using my iPhone with a separate window showing the original. So on the left side, it is being displayed normally, and on the right it is being displayed in HDR.
This one doesn't really show the difference well, because the phone simply treats the bright as white. But on my monitor, it's glowing about 4 stops brighter than white.
This shows up better. The yellow flowers look blown here, but they're not actually blown.
Sittatunga
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The clue is in the name, Graphics Interchange Format. Its LZW compression is far better for flat graphics than JPEG compression - it's not lossy, so it produces no artifacts and is far more effective for paletted images with large white areas or blocks of colour. I mainly used it for putting animated GIF diagrams into PowerPoint. But it's not a format for high fidelity photography.
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Sittatunga
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It does, but more as a graphic than as a photo.
Just checking to see if GIF files still work. Image by Sachs.
Don
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Hans Z
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Actually PNG. that is also lossless, would in general be better to use than the old GIF, unless you want a bit of animation. Although neither GIF or PNG is suitable for photographs of course. In addition JPEG XL and HEIF also offers lossless compression. The problem now is that competing standards have arisen making it more difficult for a new standard to replace the old legacy standards, even though they are better. Having companies such as Apple standardize would help but of course the incorporation of the new standards into browsers is essential.
We had (where I worked) a nice big monitor that used one-bit images.
Most printed B&W photos in books are one-bit.
Don
I remember that the first version of Photoshop that we had came on a floppy disk.
Don
We have been using lossy compression since about 1992, when JPEG came out, followed later by MPEG. Successive versions of MPEG enabled higher resolution video compression at higher compression ratios. This was possible as successively better math combined with faster chip technologies. Today, we have H.265, which is used to compress and decompress 4K and 8K video.
Your question is akin to asking, “Why not just use the original MPEG-1 for 8K video?” While it’s possible, it’s a substantially older technology which won’t deliver a file size to image quality ratio as the newer technologies. And, of course, using a 444 JPEG gives the same problem as HEIF: Software updates are needed to view and edit the images.
Johan Borg
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Sigma started using 4:4:4 for JPEGs 21 years ago and it's been working fine ever since, no updates needed as far as I can tell.
The real difference being that JPEG isn't encumbered with patents from multiple pools, so even if an upgrade were needed, it wouldn't have been financially prohibitive for developers or content creators.
tbcass
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We are talking about 2 different things. "Customers"? The vast majority of iPhone users don't sell their photos. My whole point was the fact that the iPhone is the bestselling smartphone and uses HEIF simply doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
Yes, it is lossy. The palette is limited. To accommodate the small palette, software often uses spacial dithering. That dithering is an obvious artifact. Other options besides dithering include nearest neighbor, in which case you get banding artifacts or grid patterns, in which case artifacts include a gridlike look to the image. GIF is only lossless if the source image has a limited palette of colors.
But wait, but wait! GIF also can include local palettes, so an image theoretically could be broken down to multiple image blocks, each with its own local palette. This, of course, is a lot of overhead, so GIF is almost never used this way. An example of where it is is shown in this wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF#:...aking an image,some loss of color information.
Sittatunga
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OK then, let's put to bed the idea that 75% of people can't open HEIF files. Microsoft offers a free extension for Windows 10, Microsoft HEIF extension.
As someone who only ever shoots raw I am not terribly concerned that my cameras can't produce files in the HEIF format but I am very much aware that JPEG is a long way from ideal. Yes, it's a useful format but its limitations, specifically around editing, make it less useful than it might be. I know JPEG is supposed to be a finished image fie but sometimes even finished images can benefit from cropping to fit in a particular publication.
It's obviously very easy to say "but I'm happy with JPEG" which is fine but the whole advantage of digital media is the ability to share. Sharing at minimum quality might be OK for a phone but it isn't brilliant for a smart TV or a desktop computer. Nobody is suggesting that you will be forced to switch from JPEG but why would you want to stop other people from benefiting from a better image format?
As someone who only ever shoots raw I am not terribly concerned that my cameras can't produce files in the HEIF format but I am very much aware that JPEG is a long way from ideal. Yes, it's a useful format but its limitations, specifically around editing, make it less useful than it might be. I know JPEG is supposed to be a finished image fie but sometimes even finished images can benefit from cropping to fit in a particular publication.
It's obviously very easy to say "but I'm happy with JPEG" which is fine but the whole advantage of digital media is the ability to share. Sharing at minimum quality might be OK for a phone but it isn't brilliant for a smart TV or a desktop computer. Nobody is suggesting that you will be forced to switch from JPEG but why would you want to stop other people from benefiting from a better image format?
The point is that HEIF is a better JPEG, it is not a better RAW.
It's not free to make Windows 10/11 open the files. In order for that to work, you have to also install another extension:
'Images that are stored in HEIF files that have the .heic file extension are compressed using the HEVC format. Such files require the HEVC Video Extensions package to be installed as well. If the HEVC Video Extensions package is not installed, the HEIF Image Extension will not be able to read or write .heic files.'
That extension costs 99 cents, presumably because of the ubiquitous licensing fees mentioned earlier in the thread. The cost per person isn't a problem, and installing the extensions isn't a problem for people who know what they need to do, but it remains a problem for ordinary users who don't know what this is about and will just be frustrated when out-of-the-box Windows fails to open the files.
One could say that's Microsoft's fault for being cheap, but the cost of licenses for the hundreds of millions of Windows 10/11 computers adds up.
Apple doesn't have as many newish computers out there. Also, my own personal conspiracy theory is that Apple got a steep discount on the licensing fees in exchange for providing exposure of the file format.
Aside from all that, many users need to do more with their image files than just open them in Windows. They need good third party software (and other device) support.
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Hike Pics
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The images I'm seeing are the same as your images on the right. So I guess it's being displayed correctly for me.Interesting. I thought Firefox (at least some version of it) supports HDR. It's hard to illustrate HDR without HDR, but here's an attempt. I took photos of two of the pictures there using my iPhone with a separate window showing the original. So on the left side, it is being displayed normally, and on the right it is being displayed in HDR.
This one doesn't really show the difference well, because the phone simply treats the bright as white. But on my monitor, it's glowing about 4 stops brighter than white.
This shows up better. The yellow flowers look blown here, but they're not actually blown.
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Victor Engel
It's not exactly taxing my search engine to find answers, this is for Windows 11 HIEF in W11 apparently The Gimp supports HIEF for editing. As I see it, and you will disagree, these are excuses rather than solid reasons for not implementing HIEF in cameras. Personally I'm not affected because I shoot raw but, I'm sure there are many who would benefit from the newer file format.
grsnovi
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