Optics & File Formats
Every image format is a different trade-off between quality, file size, and compatibility — pick one to see its real specs. Runs in your browser — no server call, no tracking.
JPEG's Psychoacoustic Cousin Logic
Standardized in 1992 by the Joint Photographic Experts Group, JPEG throws away image detail the human eye is statistically less likely to notice — the same lossy-compression philosophy MP3 would later apply to sound.
PNG's Patent Origin Story
PNG was created in 1996 specifically as a free, unencumbered replacement for GIF, after Unisys began enforcing licensing fees on the LZW compression algorithm GIF depended on — a rare case of a file format existing because of a patent dispute.
RAW Is Not One Format
"RAW" isn't a single standard — it's a family of proprietary, manufacturer-specific formats (Canon's .CR2/.CR3, Nikon's .NEF, Sony's .ARW) that all store minimally processed sensor data, giving far more latitude for adjustment in post than any compressed format allows.
WebP & HEIC — The Modern Contenders
Google introduced WebP in 2010 to cut image payload size across the web. Apple adopted HEIC (based on the HEVC video codec) as its default photo format in 2017 — both offer meaningfully better compression than JPEG at equivalent quality, at the cost of universal compatibility.