HEIF/HEIC image format

[jarski]

HEIC won't survive: Who would want to say "Hee-ick" when you can just say "Jay-Peg?"

ok now I'm convinced. switch back to JPEG 🙂

seriously though, its the Lightroom decided go back. would still like to get few years of use of it. by then this format situation is hopefully more clear also.

 

[boojum]

To resurrect this thread, is anyone using HEIF? Reading the thread makes me think that it will be weighed down by a morass of patents while we can use JPG for free. Right away HEIF seems to have fallen in the starting gate. This is a shame as it is a better format. Well, once again greed will strangle a good thing.

 

[Godfrey]

What do you mean "using HEIF"?
My phone creates these image files and I use them. What else?

G

 

[Disappointed_Horse]

A serious downside to HEIC is that it's highly patented, and cannot be used in software without permission and paying for a licence. JPEG is patent- and licence-free. The huge number of patents (over 7000) is bound to lead to legal problems for HEIC in the future with patent sharks. Apple helped develop it, so they're pushing for adoption, but my personal view is that it won't gain much traction, and that JPEG will remain among the most widely used image formats fir a long time yet.

I was curious about this so I downloaded a photo I shot as a HEIC file on my iPhone to my Linux computer. It's an old MacBook Air running elementaryos 8.01. I was able to open the HEIC file with GIMP, but not with any of the other image editing apps I have.

 

[Godfrey]

It should be noted that JPEG was patented too. It's simply the case that the patents have long since expired, and the custodians of the patents have not seen fit to re-file.

JPEG is a very old format and has many limitations. As time goes on, it may become too kludgy to remain useful.

G