Grum format JPEG XL is a jack-of-all-trades codec designed for multiple purposes and workflows, from capturing to authoring, archival, and distribution. Its key strength is its ability to recompress existing JPEG files, without introducing loss, resulting in 20% smaller file sizes. This enables backwards compatibility with the original bit-exact file.

Unlike other next-gen formats such as WEBP and HEIC, which are offshoots of video codecs, JPEG XL was designed with images in mind. This means that it is better at preserving high-fidelity images, such as photographs, and offers more space savings than video-derived formats. It also provides HDR support, a feature that can improve image quality significantly, and it can take advantage of multi-core processors.

Exploring the Digital Image Format: JPEG XL

For web delivery, JPEG XL can offer more than just significant size savings and negligible quality loss; it can also help reduce server storage costs. This is because it does not rely on the same compression techniques as a typical video codec and is therefore much more effective at reducing the number of pixels needed to represent an image.

However, while these benefits are notable, they are not enough to justify Google’s decision to block it from the web. In its reasoning, it cites a lack of interest from the entire ecosystem, a failure to deliver incremental benefits over existing formats, and a reduction in maintenance burden. This has been met with an outpouring of frustration in the browser’s issue tracker and in blog posts by some of the community’s most active advocates, such as Jon Sneyers, who co-created the JPEG XL standard and works for Cloudinary, which supports the format.