Do you use JPEG 2000?

I am impressed with the wavelet based JPEG 2000 format. I downloaded

the plugin for Photshop and converted some files. I especially like

the lossless compression of TIF files. I can save gigabites of

storage that way. How widespread is this? I am disapointed that

Windows XP file viewer and a number of important programs don't

support this format unless you install the plugin. What is it's

future? Shouldn't normal JPEG be dead by now??? All comments welcome!

I've had thoughts of this myself, and came to this conclusion: Jpeg 2k is obviously superior to Jpeg. There are probably enormous royalty fees involved with this new technology that keep software/hardware companies from embracing it.. I have no other explanation.<br><br>

-= Yaron Kidron (<a href="http://www.subtlelight.net">Subtlelight.Net</a>) =-

Not likely due to the large software infrastructure supporting Jpeg (like the VHS and Beta video-recorder issue).

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See further discussion on my article on <a href="http://www.photo.net/learn/jpeg/">Jpeg Compression</a> (http://www.photo.net/learn/jpeg/).

Royalty fees are not the issue. Part I of the JPEG2000 standard (most people would not need any of the features beyond Part I) does not have any royalties associated with the technology. A lot of software supports JPEG2000. The problem? In my opinion, a lack of native support in popular web browsers. If only Internet Explorer were to support it (natively, without having to download a plugin), we would see an explosion of people using it over JPEG.

I'll use JPEG20000 when my digital camera saves it's JPEGs in that format. I don't currently scan film. Any imaged I manipulate are saved as PSDs.

They are really slow to save and not very well supported.

The funny thing is, why hasn't it caught on in the photography world? With so many of us shooting raw formats, it's hard to say that JPG2000 hasn't caught on due to lack of widespread support. NEF/CRW are about as unsupported as it gets when it comes to anything a typical consumer would own.

 

It will be interesting to see what the catalyst for JPEG2000 and DNG will be, or if they will ever reach critical mass. I'd love to see both be successful.

Emre Safak uses it lossless (instead of PNG) for archiving, and that

is currently the most logical use for it. ImageMagick now supports it

and I'd be curious to know whether its JP2 saves are cross-compatible

with Photoshop and PaintShopPro. Wavelet compression promises better

quality at low Q factors, but to my eye isn't all that much superior

at high Q factors, where current JPEG really is quite good.

I've tried lossless JPEG 2000 for storing "intermediate" images during various stages of processing. Its compression is slightly (but noticeably) better than PNG. But I have plumped for PNG as an archiving format because PNG is much more widely used and I'm not convinced that JPEG 2000 will still be around in, say, ten years.

 

It's kind of a chicken-and-egg situation-- I'm reluctant to use it because it's not widely supported, but it's not widely supported because many people are reluctant to use it (because it's not widely supported).... Regardless of its technical virtues, I suspect that JPEG 2000 will die a quiet death unless Someone Important embraces it (e.g., Microsoft uses it in Longhorn-- but they're more likely to come up with a proprietary format that Longhorn's image editing bundle and Front Page generates by default, viewable only on Longhorn's bundled version of Microsoft Internet Explorer).