The state of HEIC in 2023

[masotime]

I’m going to guess it’s probably because web standards haven’t agreed to support HEIC. Web is a common denominator across practically every consumer platform now - admittedly to the extent where it’s gone a bit overboard e.g. Electron instead of native apps.

TLDR; without native web support, HEIC is not going to get much traction. Same as every other image format like JPEG2000 etc.

I think WebP or AVIF are more likely to gain traction in the future.

 

[masotime]

Decided to dig deeper into it - I think this article covers it nicely

https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/833-HEIC-Yeah.html

tldr; It’s actually a Nokia patent. It seems the licensing is onerous, which is probably a big reason why there’s little widespread support for the container format (HEIC). Interestingly, HEVC, which is the compression format powering HEIF, also has annoying licensing fees, but it seems to have held up better over time.

Nevertheless - all this licensing / patent stuff is pretty much hindering adoption of advanced image compression formats. AV1 is less restrictive - hopefully it’ll get more widespread adoption. AV1 is just the compression algorithm though - not sure about any less restrictive (license wise) image container formats in the near future.

 

[ian87w]

Decided to dig deeper into it - I think this article covers it nicely

https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/833-HEIC-Yeah.html

tldr; It’s actually a Nokia patent. It seems the licensing is onerous, which is probably a big reason why there’s little widespread support for the container format (HEIC). Interestingly, HEVC, which is the compression format powering HEIF, also has annoying licensing fees, but it seems to have held up better over time.

Nevertheless - all this licensing / patent stuff is pretty much hindering adoption of advanced image compression formats. AV1 is less restrictive - hopefully it’ll get more widespread adoption. AV1 is just the compression algorithm though - not sure about any less restrictive (license wise) image container formats in the near future.

Interesting, thanks for the deeper dive.

What annoys me is that Apple isn’t even taking advantage of the format within their own ecosystem, ie iCloud Photo shared album.

 

[phillytim]

Storage is cheap. It’s solved a problem that does not exist.

🤣😂🤣

Have you seen the prices that Apple charges for storage upgrades?????!!!!!

 

[BigMcGuire]

MY wife and I solve the family sharing issue by paying for Google Photos. Enough people we know have Android so it makes it a lot easier to just use a Google Shared Album after events and have everyone put in their photos.

I agree with ian87w here - definitely a missed opportunity. I was really hoping that Shared Library would be a lot better than it was. I am a huge photography hobbyist but sharing photos via Apple services is not great these days.

Hopefully Apple changes its mind as services become more of a $ earner.

Also agreed that prices for storage need to come down. A lot of people I know (even couples) are forced to get the 2TB plan (iMessages/Photos/etc).

 

[Danfango]

Actually had some more problems with HEIC today which got me a bit pissed off.

So I am exiting the Apple ecosystem now. The major hurdle to overcome is to move 8500 photos out of Apple Photos slowly. This is not a particularly horrible task as it's fairly well organised so moving galleries out into folders is a non issue just time consuming. Also I have a massive Lightroom tree. That went over in about 10 minutes on an external SSD no problems at all.

However there is HEIC, which on anything other than Apple, is a crapfest. I'm using window 10 here and the HEIC extension is an additional plugin due to the license requirements that you have to pay for. Only £0.79 but not the end of the world. But it's crap. The metadata is iffy and the image preview and loading is quite slow. I have about 1000 photos in HEIC before I got fed up with it last time and switched the iPhone to shooting JPEG.

Once I've moved everything out of Apple I'm going to run through it with Photoshop image processor and eviscerate the remains of this awful turd of a file format.

I shoot in JPEG on my mirrorless and iPhone now.

Back on storage in the Windows world...

... 1TB Samsung 980 Pro SSD cost me £92 and it's superior to the majority of Apple storage devices.

... 6TB storage (1TB each user) on OneDrive cost me £7.99 a month and I get all the far superior desktop Office apps across 6 people.

 

[v0lume4]

The metadata is iffy

What metadata issues are you having? I'm really funny about keeping all my metadata intact on my photos. Thankfully I turned HEIC off as soon as I got my iPhone.

Also, 6TB of storage on OneDrive? I currently pay $7.99 (or whatever it is) per month for just me and I get the Office Suite plus only 1TB. What plan gives you that much?

 

[ian87w]

Actually had some more problems with HEIC today which got me a bit pissed off.

So I am exiting the Apple ecosystem now. The major hurdle to overcome is to move 8500 photos out of Apple Photos slowly. This is not a particularly horrible task as it's fairly well organised so moving galleries out into folders is a non issue just time consuming. Also I have a massive Lightroom tree. That went over in about 10 minutes on an external SSD no problems at all.

However there is HEIC, which on anything other than Apple, is a crapfest. I'm using window 10 here and the HEIC extension is an additional plugin due to the license requirements that you have to pay for. Only £0.79 but not the end of the world. But it's crap. The metadata is iffy and the image preview and loading is quite slow. I have about 1000 photos in HEIC before I got fed up with it last time and switched the iPhone to shooting JPEG.

Once I've moved everything out of Apple I'm going to run through it with Photoshop image processor and eviscerate the remains of this awful turd of a file format.

I shoot in JPEG on my mirrorless and iPhone now.

Back on storage in the Windows world...

... 1TB Samsung 980 Pro SSD cost me £92 and it's superior to the majority of Apple storage devices.

... 6TB storage (1TB each user) on OneDrive cost me £7.99 a month and I get all the far superior desktop Office apps across 6 people.

It’s amazing isn’t it that these tech companies as big as Apple, Microsoft, and Google cannot even figure this thing out after all these years. And we want to trust them with AI and stuff? 😆

 

[Danfango]

It’s amazing isn’t it that these tech companies as big as Apple, Microsoft, and Google cannot even figure this thing out after all these years. And we want to trust them with AI and stuff? 😆

I certainly don’t trust them with AI. That’s a whole other rant though 🤣

 

[Danfango]

What metadata issues are you having? I'm really funny about keeping all my metadata intact on my photos. Thankfully I turned HEIC off as soon as I got my iPhone.

Also, 6TB of storage on OneDrive? I currently pay $7.99 (or whatever it is) per month for just me and I get the Office Suite plus only 1TB. What plan gives you that much?

It’s probably more to do with the metadata provider for windows but the location data is missing. I am using photoshop to batch process to JPEG and that appears to do a reasonable enough job of maintaining it though.

The O365 family plan gives you 6TB across all family members. You only get 1TB each. My comparison is the measly 2TB I get for everyone shared on my current apple sub. I am near 1.2TB used and it will grow past 2TB within 2 years at this rate.

I have three kids, an ex wife and a mother on my family sub. I should kick the ex wife off but it’s easier to leave her on it, at least until I end up with someone else with an iPhone 🤣

 

[ian87w]

I understand the benefits of HEIC but I’ve had a lot of problems with it. Sometimes pictures being sent in email or text won’t preview in the app or even won’t open at all. HEIC isn’t that new but it’s still not a mature format.

JPG is a standard that every program understands from Word to Photoshop. I understand why the OP is unhappy and feels like bait and switch, but for many, this makes things far more user-friendly.

5 years ago, yes, compatibility was an issue. But today, pretty much majority of iPhones and Android can handle HEIC just fine. It's the tech companies that are not enabling proper support on their services and apps that becomes the stumbling block. The hardware is ready, consumers are ready, ironically it's the big boys like Apple and Microsoft who are half hearted in supporting it

 

[masotime]

I understand the benefits of HEIC but I’ve had a lot of problems with it. Sometimes pictures being sent in email or text won’t preview in the app or even won’t open at all. HEIC isn’t that new but it’s still not a mature format.

JPG is a standard that every program understands from Word to Photoshop. I understand why the OP is unhappy and feels like a bait and switch, but for many, this makes things far more user-friendly.

AVIF looks to have much better widespread browser support than HEIF. The lack of licensing fees also helps.

• https://caniuse.com/avif - supported by everything except Edge / IE and a few minor players
• https://caniuse.com/heif - literally no web browser supports it.

AV1 compression is better than HEVC anyway - looks like the industry is converging towards AV1, and hopefully AVIF as well.

 

[cSalmon]

While I agree 100% that web support is key I also think that any format that doesn't support at least 16bit color won't have the long term legacy that jpg had.

AV1 can support 12bit? or may in the future? I wonder if this could be a reason none of these formats have taken off? Their improvements at the present time are clearly only a small step to the final need a compressed format that actually supports the standard higher color bit depth, 16bit.

 

[masotime]

While I agree 100% that web support is key I also think that any format that doesn't support at least 16bit color won't have the long term legacy that jpg had.

AV1 can support 12bit? or may in the future? I wonder if this could be a reason none of these formats have taken off? Their improvements at the present time are clearly only a small step to the final need a compressed format that actually supports the standard higher color bit depth, 16bit.

Hmmm… I’m not sure I agree 16-bit depth support is critical for widespread adoption. In general for “sharing” purposes with friends / family or in the media etc. I’d imagine having broad support across platforms is more critical for choosing a format for publishing.

It does make sense to me that displays in the future can support 16-bit color depth (that’s really a lot of color depth / HDR though - 281 trillion / 2^48 colors for RGB….) - but cameras already support 14-bit RAW so I’m sure it’ll happen. I just am not sure the vast majority of consumers of images will really consider lack of 16- or even 14-bit color a deal breaker for widespread adoption.

 

[masotime]

Dug a bit more into it - https://www.tomshardware.com/news/what-is-10-bit-color,36912.html

After looking it over, Dolby (the developer of how bits apply to luminance in the new HDR standard used by Dolby Vision and HDR10) concluded that 10 bits would have a little bit of noticeable banding, whereas 12 bits wouldn’t have any at all.

Not sure how authoritative that is, but it does explain the choice of 12-bits.

I think for image capture more bits are good - that allows you to adjust images in post to raise shadows / remove blown highlights - but likely the final production image - at least assuming the article is correct - doesn’t need to be more than 12-bits for human vision.

 

[cSalmon]

I just am not sure the vast majority of consumers of images will really consider lack of 16- or even 14-bit color a deal breaker for widespread adoption.

a lot of experts said that about 4k and now 8k tvs - I don't believe it's about the what we speculate the consumer's opinion to be if there's going to be a "common denominator" then it has to work for all or most all parties involved and most decent photographers, graphic designers, Creative Departments, marketing agencies and even cloud backups need and will want to move to a compressed format with the higher color bit depth. So then you would have 3 standard formats: two compressed 8 bit formats and finally one 16bit compressed format. Over time don't you think the 16bit file will become the common denominator?

- at least assuming the article is correct - doesn’t need to be more that 12-bits for human vision.

That article means absolutely nothing because it is trying to justify for today's TV tech. The simple fact is one of the reasons we need the larger bit depth with a sharable file is so others can receive and make edits or receive and make prints or future proof for not to distance improvements in tech. 8 bit does not work for future edits in a professional workflow. That is fact no assuming there, anyone can break an 8bit file with a couple of color edits.

 

[masotime]

8 bit does not work for future edits in a professional workflow. That is fact no assuming there, anyone can break an 8bit file with a couple of color edits.

I agree. I’d say RAW (for photography) and ProRES (for video) make more sense for professional workflows.

 

[BigMcGuire]

So is there any negative to changing phone to JPG format? Other than slightly larger file sizes?

I've always thought about doing this just because I have a lot of Windows/Android people I know and I'm getting tired taking a screenshot of my photo so I can send it to them LOL.

 

[masotime]

Whoever is to be blamed JPG is still the standard. Even H.264 has not fully taken over from MP4 and ProRess.

H.264 is a lossy video-specific compression algorithm - it’s used in MP4, which is a file format / container. MP4 supports other algorithms - HEVC which is also known as H.265 (and is used in HEIF) is also useable in the MP4 container.

H.264 (or any other lossy compression algorithm) will not replace ProRES. ProRES is a lossless format, ideal for editing. It’s like a pristine “master” of a video, and when tech improves in the future (eg HDR improvements), ProRES videos can be re-encoded to take advantage of improved tech.

 

[cSalmon]

So is there any negative to changing phone to JPG format? Other than slightly larger file sizes?

nope

 

[ian87w]

Whoever is to be blamed JPG is still the standard. Even H.264 has not fully taken over from MP4 and ProRess.

H.264 is everywhere. It is used on Blu-ray, and every video related software supports it. H.264 is as ubiquitous as MP3 at this point.

 

[cheddar-caveman]

Personally I find HEIC from my iPhone 12mini a PAIN! Most are for sharing on Facebook so I have to import them to my computer, import them to Photos, then export them as .jpg to where they;'re needed. A pain!

 

[adrianlondon]

Personally I find HEIC from my iPhone 12mini a PAIN! Most are for sharing on Facebook so I have to import them to my computer, import them to Photos, then export them as .jpg to where they;'re needed. A pain!

I sync my photos using iCloud; all I need to do is go to facebook on the browser and it opens up Finder when I want to upload a photo, and on the sidebar is "photos". It'll read them directly from HEIC format.

(I don't have Facebook on my phone, so don't know if it can be done directly there.)

 

[bunnspecial]

I noticed in the announcement for the new Nikon Z8 that HEIF is one of the supported file formats. My newly acquired Fuji XT-5 also offers it. A bit of Googling tells me that Canon has been doing it since 2019.

It seems as though it's becoming more common. It does have some technical advantages over JPEG, not the least of which is smaller file sizes that can avoid a lot of the artifacts of JPEG compression. Still, though JPEG is still so integral to the fabric of the web that it's probably going to be a steep hill to climb to replace it. With that said, one other early web format-GIF-seems all but dead but then they were kind of crummy in the first place.

 

[Clix Pix]

My Sonys have it but I have never bothered with it since I shoot in RAW Uncompressed anyway. First thing I always do when I get a new iPhone is to make JPG the default, not HEIF. I am not interested in it and sharing images in that format doesn't work too well if the recipients cannot view HEIF photos anyway. I think JPG/JPEG will rule for a long, long time to come....