What You Need to Know About HEIF in macOS High Sierra and iOS 11
Monday September 25, 2017 10:45 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
With the official release of iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra, Apple introduced support for a new image format called HEIF. Apple sees HEIF as a worthy successor to the JPEG format. So what makes it so good that it can replace an industry standard that's been in use for almost 25 years?
What is HEIF?
HEIF stands for High Efficiency Image Format and can be considered the still-image version of the HEVC video codec that Apple's ecosystem now officially supports. (You can learn more about HEVC here.) The HEIF standard wasn't made by Apple – it was developed in 2015 by the MPEG group, which also invented the AAC audio format used in iTunes.
Benefits of HEIF Over JPEG
As the name implies, HEIF is a more streamlined method of storing image data and offers better quality than the traditional JPEG format. For example, HEIF supports image transparency and can capture a more extended color range than JPEG (16-bit versus 8-bit), which should increase the accuracy of photos taken on Apple's latest iPhones. At the same time, a HEIF-encoded image should be around half the file size of an equivalent-quality JPEG, so users will be able to keep twice the number of shots on their Apple devices (or in iCloud) before they max out their storage capacity.
In addition, HEIF files include a 320x240 embedded thumbnail that's four times the resolution but only twice the file size of a standard JPEG thumbnail. HEIF images can also be rotated and cropped without altering the image or re-saving them, all of which makes working with HEIF files that much faster than JPEG on both Mac and iOS
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