Google to kill the jpeg and png?
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WebP image format originally rivalled jpeg images. This has been floating around for awhile but I'm genuinely excited by it. The latest version has implemented transparency so it now tackles .png.
You can see examples here?..
http://code.google.com/speed/webp/gallery.html
The level of compression is astonishing plus even as a lossless format it's remarkably low in file size.
Whether or not it becomes standard is not story but I like the concept.
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Well, it can be the future but for the time being, just because Google is trying to "encourage" the use, it will definitely not become a standard. That is; until all major browsers (and of course, SketchUp
) support it natively.If you remember what was the case with png files (more exactly with their transparency) and IE6, you know what I mean.
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It looks very interesting, but I think Gaius is right. Image formats seem remarkably resistant to change. For instance, look what's happened to jpeg2000; that actually has been supported by most decent image browsers/editors, but still doesn't seem to have made much impression after 11 years.
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There could probably be a solution on webmasters' end - to provide alternative image formats in browsers that are capable of displaying them. This would be extremely much work (unless automated somehow) however. Like there used to be hacks to display png files in IE 6, too.
IMO the gain on file size is not necessarily in comparison with the additional work (and possible additional load on the server/browser). On top of all, bandwidth is increasing much and people will just give a damn on smaller file sizes.
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I see it as a possibility, think about it these days tablets dictate the market and they are growing stronger everyday, if HTML5 can replace flash then anything can happen, so finding a more effecient image format will fit right into the new future.
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Also interesting is the fact that most people assume png to be completely lossless. This isn't so. In Photozoom, for example, you can set the degree of lossiness in Preferences. A completely lossless setting will produce a file over twice the size of one saved at the other end of the slider. There's no visible difference between the two.
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png is lossless - but there is a trade-off between the level of compression (file size) and the time it takes to compress/decompress, which is the purpose of the slider. I am not sure this is even an issue on new computers, or perhaps for very large files.
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Thanks for clarifying that, Jim. I think you're right about decompression times; I don't notice any difference even on my laptop.
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I'll keep an open mind on this.
A little off topic here...
A few months back I posted about JPEGmini. A site that compresses jpeg with no loss in image quality. I tried it for a bit but found the results a bit
I do recommend giving it a test run to see the results.
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One note about comparing compressed image formats: the content of the image will give different results for the same dimensions. So its not as simple as one format being always better than the other.
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