JPEG XL is a new, royalty-free image format that offers significantly better compression than standard JPEG files while maintaining high quality.
Unlike other image formats such as HEIC, AVIF, and WebP, JPEG XL is specifically designed as an image format to provide photographers with greater control. Interestingly, the extensions mentioned above are actually derived from video codecs.
Notably, Apple has reportedly added native support for the JPEG XL format in the iPhone 16 series to attract more photographers. If you’re using an iPhone 16 and have set the image format to JPEG XL, you’ll need to add support for this format in Windows 11.
While Apple offers native support for JPEG XL through OS updates, Microsoft has chosen to provide it via an extension available in the Microsoft Store.
Users requiring support for this file format must download the additional extension from the Microsoft Store.
To download the extension, simply visit the Microsoft Store page here.
As mentioned earlier, JPEG XL can be seen as the successor to the outdated JPG format. Despite this, it remains as easy to use as JPG and lacks the compatibility issues associated with other formats like HEIF and AVIF.
JPEG XL excels in compression, helping users save up to 75% of storage space while supporting a wider color gamut. Additionally, it offers faster encoding and decoding.
Generally, the image quality of JPG and JPEG XL (.jxl) is identical, but JXL files are significantly smaller in size.
However, opening JPEG XL files can still be a bit tricky. While they can be displayed as thumbnails in File Explorer, they cannot yet be opened in Microsoft Photos, even after adding the extension.
In the future, Microsoft may release updates to enable direct support for this format in Microsoft Photos.
Via: Windows Latest
