jpeg and jpeg 2000

By the way, Photoshop CS2 could not open those German J2K files.
Perhaps this is because I'm using my daughter's educational license.
Obviously I need "Real Software" such as Irfanview's plug-in.

 

Yes, try Irfanview. Someone else recently wrote that it didn't
have restrictions when opening J2K/JP2 files. If it also can't open
the German J2K files that'll be worth knowing for anyone considering
purchasing the plugin.

 

if you pay, Irfanview has a plugin for jpeg2000



On 26 Jan 2007 17:57:38 -0800, Bill Tuthill <>
wrote:

#>
#>> Well, most people don't use it. I would have done better had
#>> Microsoft taken a few moments to fully support the alpha
#>> transparency for the web. That is one thing very much needed for
#>> the web is alpha transparency. But, now it is just too late.
#>
#> That is a contradiction. As it seems safe to assume that the web
still
#> needs alpha transparency and since there is no readily available
and
#> widely websupported alternatives to PNG, it follows logically that
it
#> is not too late for PNG.
#
#GIF patents have expired in most countries, so perhaps web designers
#who need transparency can just use GIF now.
#
#Sorry to return the topic to JPEG2000 (cough), but I have a question.
#
#Does Irfanview have a plug-in for J2K? If so I don't have it.
#I'm still waiting for Photoshop to come up so I can look at the
#op. cit. images from Photozone.de, yawn.

 

By the way, PaintShopPro 9 opens these JP2 (JPEG 2000) files,
and all of them are improved by the quick-enhance option.
As usual, Canon DSLR is unable to produce ideal out-of-camera results.

To reiterate, Photoshop CS2 could not open these JP2 files.

 

IMHO it hasn't been widely adopted enough to be usable as an archive
format. I want to use a format I KNOW will outlive my grandchildren.
That is (normal) jpeg.

 

But its not lossless, and my understanding is that lossless formats
are preferred for archival. I am not very familiar with how
photographers solve this 'archive format' questions as the situation
is less than ideal. Most RAW formats are proprietary, which makes them
even worse. From among the options, Jpeg2000 doesn't seems that bad.

Is DNG preferred over camera's native RAW for archival? or is TIFF the
choice?

Just curious.

Sachin Garg [India]
www.sachingarg.com | www.c10n.info

 

Thanks, that was helpful. For a technical comparison you can check
this,

http://www.c10n.info/archives/454

Sachin Garg [India]
www.sachingarg.com | www.c10n.info

 

That is the prevailing agreement nowadays. If we're talking about
institutions, a lot of them also tend to prefer non-compressed formats,
from the point of view that bit-errors aren't as critical for those
formats. A truth with some modification, in my opinion.

For those that subscribe to the non-compressed idea and really think
worst-case scenarios, 24bit Baseline TIFF (uncompressed) is a fine
candidate. The header isn't overly complex and the pixel-representation
is simply all the RGB-values put after each other, so if everything
else fails, they are easy to extract.

Noone really has a definitive answer, but my common sense tells me to
avoid proprietary closed formats if possible and store archival copies
in open formats only. For me, that's JPEG (if I haven't modified the
photo) and PNG. If I was more paranoid, it would be PNG all the way.

For non-lossy archival storage of just the pixels, JPEG 2000 seems a
bad choice due to its licensing "we're pretty sure that you're allowed
to support JPEG 2000, but we won't guarantee anything" disclaimer. I
know that it compresses better than PNG, but not by much.

They are two different things. One if the negative, the other is the
print, to make an analog analogy. Personally I think I'd go for DNG.


But all this is speculation. If we look around, there are millions, if
not billions of images in JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG, TIFF of all sorts, DNG,
BMP and other formats. Chances are that all formats with such a huge
number of images will be supported indefinitely by image viewers.

The only things that can stop that seems to be either legal issues or
world-wide civilisation collapse.

 

The US Library of Congress says DNG is preferred:
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/content/
still_preferences.shtml

 

I don't feel compelled to archive in a lossless format. If it's good
enough for me, it's good enough for them. I've never looked at others'
old photos and thought, "gee I sure do wish they'd used a larger film
format, too much grain." Nobody cares about such things.

If anything, I think the smaller size increases the archivability
because I can fit my collection on one DVD. In fact I think my personal
collection has more value with only my favorite shots, than if there
were thousands, watering it down. I think most of us who imagine that
anybody will ever want to look through thousands upon thousands of our
old shots are just flattering ourselves. Mostly it will just be
relatives looking for pictures of themselves. If they want a nice shot
of the Grand Canyon for their wall, I'm sure there will be plenty
floating around.

Of course if I worked at the National Archive and I was making the
digital master of the Declaration of Independence it would be different.

 

I look at my own old photos, and other peoples', and think things like
that quite frequently.

 

Yes, I agree that all these formats will continue to be supported for
a long time, but I think it will be harder to say the same about RAW
formats of old cameras.

Overall DNG looks like a good option to me for saving RAW, and
Jpeg2000 for normal images. Maybe these are not perfect choices but
still...

Sachin Garg [India]
www.sachingarg.com | www.c10n.info

 

DNG looks like a good option but folks at OpenRAW seem to disagree
with that ( http://www.openraw.org/node/1482 ). I am not sure if these
concerns are critical.

Sachin Garg [India]
www.sachingarg.com | www.c10n.info

ps. My first reply to this message seems to have got lost, so replying
again.

 

Stuart Nixon got it wrong! Here is my commentary on his article:
http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/articles/dng/commentary1.htm

OpenRAW has buried its head in the sand about DNG since the start. (I
am member 11, and my views were rarely popular!)
http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/articles/dng/openraw.htm

 

Good points, I can't really argue.

However I urge you to use 4:4:4 (1x1) chroma subsampling,
or 4:2:2 if you really need to save space, rather than 4:1:1 (2x2).
When it comes time to edit the images, your descendents will be
glad you did. There is a huge difference in edge artifacting,
and you pay a small price in size for 4:2:2.

 

Aren't corresponding DNG images much larger than Canon RAW, like 1.5x?
I heard that. For me, the jury is still out on DNG.

Thanks, your writeup and links therein were informative!
Have you heard anything on performance issues?

Microsoft could actually make money by selling this to camera vendors,
if it has the performance advantage they say it does.

 

I am not the one to whom your directed this question, but since I have both
a lot of Canon raws and a lot of DNGs converted from the same camera I took
a look. I found that, on average, my DNGs are actually smaller than my
CR2s.
Chuck

 

Dunno about Canon; the main reason I converted my Fuji RAW files to DNG
is that the DNG was less than half the size of the original.

 

You heard wrong. You can try out working with DNG easily and free for a
few more weeks, with Adobe Lightroom, coming out of beta.

With my Canon RAW files, I find the average savings on conversion to DNG
to be about 20 %, not counting doing away with .xmp sidecar files,
another conversion advantage for me.

 

[snip]

No. DNGs are typically smaller than the original raw files, although
recent NEFs and CR2s are comparable. (In fact, DNG and CR2 both use
JPEG lossless compression). Here are some examples:
http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/articles/dng/benefits.htm#filesize

The above (whole) page identifies typical benefits from DNG to various
people.