Improve Capture One
Request a new feature, or support for a camera/lens that you would like to use in Capture One.
Request a new feature, or support for a camera/lens that you would like to use in Capture One.
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AVIF and JPEG XL are the only two contenders for the spot as the next true JPEG replacement. They are both royalty free. It is inexcusable for Capture One to not support these two formats, presently. JPEG XL has been around in one form or another for a decade, while AVIF is quite new. WebP is another popular format, but should not be supported. These formats are not always supported by desktop apps, browsers, and web apps. However, AVIF is supported by Google Photos, already, and other companies have shown support for it. If a free app like FastStone Image Viewer, developed by one person in his free time, can support reading and writing these formats, why can't this expensive paid app? Capture One, I want you to ask yourself, are you, or aren't you, trying to be a leader in this industry? I want to emphasize to the decision-makers at Capture One that the popularity of these formats depends on professional software makers like them choosing to proactively support these formats. Reactive decision making is a poor choice, particularly when you can use your position in the industry to promote good habits on the part of uninformed users. At present, AVIF is considered a competitor, however JPEG XL is far superior for many reasons. Consider this, and make an effort to guide the industry. As such, I recommend setting JPEG XL as your default output format, to give users a hint about what they should be thinking about. Additionally, you can include warnings about the limitations in AVIF. I believe AVIF is more aptly positioned as a replacement for WebP, since WebP's adoption never really kicked off. |
ROYALTY FREE
Built for photography
The name refers to the design committee (JPEG), the X designates the series of its image coding standards published since 2000 (JPEG XT/XR/XS), and L stands for "long-term", highlighting the intent to create a future-proof, long-lived format to succeed JPEG/JFIF.[7] -Wikipedia
Besides Cloudinary, throughout JPEG XL's preliminary implementation in web browsers, various representatives of well-known industry brand names have publicly voiced support for JPEG XL as their preferred choice, including Facebook,[16][17] Adobe,[18][19] Intel and the Video Electronics Standards Association,[20][21] The Guardian,[22][23] Flickr and SmugMug,[24] Shopify,[25] the Krita Foundation,[26] and Serif Ltd.[27]
This person already requested support in 2023:
https://captureone.ideas.aha.io/ideas/FR-I-438
Support for JPEG XL should not still be awaiting review in 2025. Come on, Capture One.
Same for these others: https://captureone.ideas.aha.io/ideas/search?query=jpeg+xl
ROYALTY FREE
AVIF has been gaining traction among tech giants like Google, Netflix, and Microsoft. It’s supported by major browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge and also mobile native Android 12+, and iOS 16+. However, full adoption across all platforms is still in progress.
AVIF offers better compression than JPEG, PNG, and WebP, resulting in smaller file sizes without sacrificing quality.
Support for advanced features like HDR (High Dynamic Range) and wide color gamut.
Progressive rendering, allows images to load gradually for a smoother user experience.
Provides higher image quality in complex visual scenarios.
It supports a wide color gamut for accurate, vibrant color reproduction. Effective for high-quality images.
Supports transparency for both lossy and lossless compression.
At extreme compression ratios, JPEG XL looks more true to the original than AVIF.
Max image size is limited to 4K (3840x2160) in AVIF, which is a deal breaker to me. You can tile images, but seams are visible at the edges, which makes this unusable. JPEG XL supports image sizes of up to 1,073,741,823x1,073,741,824. You won’t run out of image space anytime soon.
JXL offers lossless recompression of JPEG images. This is important for compatibility, as you can re-encode JPEG images into JXL for a 30% reduction in file size for free. AVIF has no such feature.
JXL has a maximum of 32 bits per channel. AVIF supports up to 10. <-- outdated info. It is now 12 bpc.
JXL is more resilient to generation loss.6
JXL supports progressive decoding, which is essential in web delivery, IMO. AVIF has no such feature. <-- outdated info
AVIF is notoriously based on the AV1 video encoder. That makes it far superior for animated image sequences, outperforming JXL in this department by a wide margin. However, JXL also supports this feature.
AVIF is supported in most major browsers. This includes Chrome (and derivatives) and Firefox (and forks). JXL is supported by almost nobody right now. Only Thorium, Pale Moon, LibreWolf, Waterfox, Basilisk and Firefox Nightly incorporate it. Most of these are community-maintained forks of Firefox. That is a big downside for adoption
Both formats support transparency and wide gamut (HDR).
NOT ROYALTY FREE
HEIF/HEIC became popular in Apple land, however it lacks widespread adoption due to the nature of its licensing and royalties. While I hate the idea of investing in this, and see it as a guaranteed loss in the future, it gained enough popularity on iOS and MacOS that it is important to be able to import and read this format, at minimum, if not export it. And, if the app can read it, it should also be writing it. A software library will not likely only read the format, so go ahead and include the export feature. People will inevitably want to import their iOS photos and include them in a photography library.
HEIF will likely die out in favor of AVIF or JPEG XL, with any luck and some pressure from the EU against Apple. Apple has a tendency to drag the industry into their money schemes until people get annoyed. But for the meantime, this crap needs to be supported.
WebP is optimized for smaller graphics to distribute online. Its main goal is to minimize data, not represent photographic images with any sort of fidelity.
Explicitly designed for internet use, so it’s not ideal for offline use.
Limited to 8-bit color support.
Doesn’t support progressive encoding, making rendering inefficient.
Can degrade image quality in some cases.
The only real reason to support WebP is that we live in a somewhat internet-centric culture. The entire point of taking photos for most photographers is to have it end up online, on a website, on social media, etc. With the introduction of AVIF and JPEG XL, this format is unnecessary for serious photographer workflows.
Additionally, JPEG XL is already supported in all Apple products (iOS, MacOS) natively.
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