GIMP 2.10.2 Released With HEIF Image Format Support

[Grinch]

this fall adoption should go up quite a bit by the end of the year.

Support does not equal adoption, and the most important area of adoption today (and in the foreseeable future) is the web, being a image format which is royalty burdened is an enormous obstacle for adoption. Jpeg is free to distribute, images are not a huge bandwidth hog compared to video, and the HEIC savings of 50% are only true when we are talking about very low bitrate images which is where jpeg breaks up quickly, but such low bitrate images are very uncommon.

This is why IMO the only possible contender to jpeg would be AV1-avif, but again given how jpeg is free to use/distribute, supported everywhere, has 100% adoption, is hardware accelerated on devices, and is 'good enough' for it's purposes, it's hard to see anything dethroning it.

[M@GOid]

(... brace yourself, young one, for this old fart is going to lament the current state of things)

More vertical resolution, on desktops yes, in laptops no or "kinda no" (higher res but small screen and you need to upscale to see GUI elements, wasting space).

But still, what has aspect ratio to do with resolution available in old screens again?
You know right that higher resolutions of 4:3 aspect ratio monitors exist?
That operating systems as old as Windows 3.1 were able to "multitask" with many windows (multitask from an user perspective)?

4:3 only starts becoming stupid when you go in 4k (while keeping the same pixel density of a FullHD screen, for example having a 4k screen that is 43''), but there the master race becomes the 16:10 (widescreen), which is like having 2x 4:3 monitors side by side. Many old farts migrated to widescreens when it was the time to upgrade their 4:3.

At lower resolutions 16:9 straight up loses to 4:3 at the same-ish resolution for productivity, as the 16:9 arranges the space to the sides, going into your peripheral vision, which is not accurate, so you need to move the eyes to see what is there and then move again to see what is in the center and so on. Plus the fact that many applications are still designed to use a ton of vertical space, in many fields.

16:9 actually a somewhat better for gaming, as there having peripheral vision is great, and the camera moves with you anyway, as long as it does not sacrifice too much vertical space it's all fine.

Again keeping same pixel density as a normal fullHD screen, shoving a 4k screen in a 21 or even 27'' space wastes a lot of space because you need to upscale stuff or you don't see the GUI elements. Those screens use the higher res to look better, and that's it.

I could almost see you rolling up your sleeves to type that response :-) I really need to stop calling people names.

I think I was kinda like those hipsters (oops I did it again... ) I like to critique that asks "who still uses e-mail today?", to my response is "well, get a job in any large organisation and you will find out".

I remember having some simultaneously windows on the nineties, with simple programs like a calculator or media players. Full screen was for programs like a spreadsheet or a full text editor. But today it seems to me a waste of space, for example, to go full screen with a browser on a 1080p screen for example, since most web pages max out at 900-1000 vertical lines. I always get mad at my friends opening a full screen web browser on 1080p plus monitors, seeing all that wasted space on the sides. I know, I have a problem...

Maybe I have a good vision for people of my age, since I can read without problem text on small fonts and notice the better image quality on higher dpi screens, where most people wont.

In the end, I just want people to enjoy the ability to open multiple windows sibe by side, to exploit the marvel that are modern screens. So much information you can get without needing 2/3 monitors setup.

[TheLexMachine]

Support does not equal adoption, and the most important area of adoption today (and in the foreseeable future) is the web, being a image format which is royalty burdened is an enormous obstacle for adoption. Jpeg is free to distribute, images are not a huge bandwidth hog compared to video, and the HEIC savings of 50% are only true when we are talking about very low bitrate images which is where jpeg breaks up quickly, but such low bitrate images are very uncommon.

This is why IMO the only possible contender to jpeg would be AV1-avif, but again given how jpeg is free to use/distribute, supported everywhere, has 100% adoption, is hardware accelerated on devices, and is 'good enough' for it's purposes, it's hard to see anything dethroning it.

From what I've read on recent developments regarding it's future, JPEG is also being updated with new capabilities and features, to go toe-to-toe with any future contenders and the updated JPEG is supposed to be 100% backwards-compatible and the patent coverage will be royalty-free, to keep it competitive with others.

[eigenlambda]

jfif (pronounced jfif, as opposed to gif, pronounced gif) doesn't support more than 256 colors at a time, which is why it's being replaced by a better, more generic lossy animation format, avif. The general image format that people store general camera images in has the drawback that when you take a picture in a dark place you get nothing because it too doesn't support enough colors, which is why it's also getting replaced with a more generic lossy format with better compression that also supports animation.