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A new PNG spec

programmax.net

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Re: A new PNG spec

#201

Post by 127 »

poisonborz wrote: post #146

Not backwards compatible. We just add it to that nice cupboard "great advanced image formats we will forget about". Society doesn't need a new image format. I'd wager to say not any new multimedia format. Big corporate entites do, and have churning them out at a steady pace. Look at poor webp - a format pushed by the largest industry players - and the abysmal everyday use it gets, and the hate it generates.

There's a big issue that all old popular image formats are 8-bits. 10-bits or even 12-bits would help a lot with storing more information and maintaining editability.

Re: A new PNG spec

#202

Post by qwertfisch »

Seems a bit too late? And also, JPEG XL supports all the features and uses already advanced compression (finite-state entropy, like ZStandard). It offers lossy and lossless compression, animated pictures, HDR, EXIF etc.

There is just no need for a PNG update, just adopt JPEG XL.

Re: A new PNG spec

#203

Post by dspillett »

reaperducer wrote: post #197
dinkblam wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on the contrary. on macOS apps don't have to support image (or movie) formats. it is done by the system and transparently handled by the APIs. apps automatically gain new formats when the system adds it.

The unfortunate side effect of this convenience is that apps automatically lose image support when macOS chases to no longer support them, too. One example is Sony's SRF camera raw format. Programs like Photoshop and Affinity have to bring their own decoders where previously none were required.

And having to bring in support for formats that are deprecated by the OS, if they decide to keep supporting that format as there is sufficient demand from their users, is worse than having to bring in support for all formats rather than getting support from the OS?

Having ask that in a slightly confrontational way, one of the reasons I started using VLC all those years ago, and still use it to this day, was having trouble with other media players that relied on OS support fail to work well (or at all) with some codecs, while VLC brought support for them, and their dog, built-in and reliable. Dragging your own format support libraries with you can be beneficial.

Re: A new PNG spec

#205

Post by Findecanor »

qwertox wrote: post #10

> Officially supports Exif data Probably the best news here. While you already can write custom data into a header, having Exif is good. BTW: Does Exif have a magnetometer (rotation) and acceleration (gravity) field? I often wonder about why Google isn't saving this information in the images which the camera app saves. It could help so much with post-processing, like with leveling the horizon or creating panoramas.

Does the meta-data have support for opting in/out of "AI training"?

And is being able to read an image without an opt-in tag something that has to be explicitly enabled in the reference implementation's API?

Re: A new PNG spec

#206

Post by londons_explore »

127 wrote: post #201
poisonborz wrote: post #146

Not backwards compatible. We just add it to that nice cupboard "great advanced image formats we will forget about". Society doesn't need a new image format. I'd wager to say not any new multimedia format. Big corporate entites do, and have churning them out at a steady pace. Look at poor webp - a format pushed by the largest industry players - and the abysmal everyday use it gets, and the hate it generates.

There's a big issue that all old popular image formats are 8-bits. 10-bits or even 12-bits would help a lot with storing more information and maintaining editability.

If adding more bits to an image format, please make it 'n bit'. Ie. the file could be 8 bit, it could be 10, it could be 12, it could be 60 bit!

Whilst we're at it, please get rid of RGB and make it N channels too.

Libraries can choose to render that into a 3 channel, 8 bit buffer for legacy applications - but the data will be there for CMYK or HDR, or depth maps, or transparency, or focus stacking, or any other future feature!

Re: A new PNG spec

#207

Post by lioeters »

poisonborz wrote: post #146

Not backwards compatible. We just add it to that nice cupboard "great advanced image formats we will forget about". Society doesn't need a new image format. I'd wager to say not any new multimedia format. Big corporate entites do, and have churning them out at a steady pace. Look at poor webp - a format pushed by the largest industry players - and the abysmal everyday use it gets, and the hate it generates.

> Not backwards compatible

They say it's technically compatible since older image decoders should recognize the PNG file is using a different compression algorithm than the default.

> Many programs already support the new PNG spec: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, iOS/macOS, Photoshop, DaVinci Resolve, Avid Media Composer...

This is intentionally ignoring the fact that there are countless PNG decoders out in the wild, many using libpng the standard decoder last updated 6 years ago; and they will not be able to read the new PNG v2 files.

They should have used a different file extension, PNG2, to distinguish this incompatible format. Otherwise, users will be confused why their newly saved PNG file cannot be read by certain existing programs.

Re: A new PNG spec

#208

Post by Findecanor »

Arnt wrote: post #128
snvzz wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am hopeful whatever better compression doesn't end up multiplying memory requirements, or increase burden on cpu, especially on decompression. Now, PNG datatype for AmigaOS will need upgrading.

I don't see why? If your video output is plain old RGB (like the Amiga hardware), then an unmodified decoder will handle new files without a problem. You only need a new decoder if your video output can handle more vivid colours than RGB can express.

An image decoded in the wrong colour space for the output will look wrong. It is not using extra bits to express the increased dynamic range: the existing numeric range is stretched and warped.

Re: A new PNG spec

#209

Post by chillingeffect »

debugnik wrote: post #189
hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My file manager can’t handle them but my browser can. Edit: and good luck uploading the format to the majority of webforms that aren’t faang.

Not even Google supports webp uploads in many of their web apps, and it's their format.

Could it be a lack of resources? Or some missing expertise? Maybe they could find some interns who are familiar with it? Maybe the entire world is so obsessed w AI, we don't even care about image formats anymore.

Re: A new PNG spec

#210

Post by echelon »

wltr wrote: post #176
Geezus_42 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, so I can download it, but then I have to convert it to a different format before half my apps will be able to use it.

Maybe the issue is with your operating system then?

You can't use webp on Reddit, Instagram, and hundreds of other websites. Which is ironic because some of them serve images as webp.
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