PHOTOGRAPHY
Seen on web browsers and smartphones everywhere, the JPEG file format is the bread and butter of everyday image file storage and display. Find out more about the history of JPEG images, what to use them for, and how to take advantage of their compression capabilities.
JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, an international organization that standardized the format during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It’s the go-to file format for digital images — and it has been ever since photographers began snapping and storing images on digital cameras and other reprographic devices.
JPEG images group together the following filename extensions:
A JPEG file supports up to 24-bit color and uses lossy compression to compress images for more convenient storage and sending. This may make JPEGs better for everyday use, but it does mean sacrificing some of the original image quality.
In 1986, monitor technology couldn’t produce on-screen graphics. That’s when a group called the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) started working on ways to bring photo-realistic pictures to small screens around the world.
At the same time, the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) arrived on the scene and created its own standard to compress graphics files enough to work on the average PC. They came up with the concept of lossy compression, which removed visual data that the human eye couldn't see and averaged out color variation.
JPEG files came into their own with the advent of digital cameras and the World Wide Web. Now, anyone could snap and store images in small enough files to fit on limited camera storage while displaying reasonably well. The real value came in the JPEG’s ability to store metadata — such as where and when a picture is taken, and even camera settings.
Serious photographers still shy away from shooting in JPEGs because they want to keep all the image detail for post-processing or printing. But this file format is still very much a mainstream favorite.
A JPEG file can display 16.8 million colors while staying relatively small in size. That’s what makes it the go-to file for photographers and web publishers alike.
While photographers tend to shoot in a raw format to ensure the most accurate capture of a picture possible, they often share the fruits of their labor online in JPEG form. The smaller size means it’ll open faster on most browsers (including mobile) without sacrificing too much quality.
Everyone from big-time publishers to bloggers benefit from using JPEG files on their website. Faster page loading times gives readers quicker access to content — plus, JPEGs don’t take up too much storage space in the cloud.
The trade-off between file size and image quality is where the JPEG debate heats up.
If you’ve found an image on a web page and want to view it on its own, you can usually open it in a new tab. Right-click on the image (on PC) and select Open Image in New Tab or similar.
If you’re operating Safari or a different browser on a Mac, you’ll see the same type of option as above for opening an image in a new tab. Just hold down the Command key and click on the image to bring up a menu, then select Open Image in New Tab.
Your computer should have a default image viewing program such as Photos for Windows or Preview on Mac. To open a file that’s saved on your computer, double-click the image file on your desktop and it will open using the default program.
Alternatively, you can use your preferred piece of software for viewing photos on Windows:
When you want to save a finished file in Adobe Photoshop, you can create a JPEG file by clicking on the File menu, then selecting Save As.
You can return at any time to edit the file by opening Photoshop and using the File menu, then Open, to locate the file in your file explorer window. However, JPEG may not be the best choice for saving works-in-progress on Photoshop — the lossy compression can affect the image quality and you may lose some of the effect of the work. If this is the case for you, try saving as an alternative file format like PSD.
You can also create a JPEG in Adobe Firefly's AI image generator and downloading your finished creation as a JPEG file.
Exchangeable image file format, or EXIF, is data contained within a JPEG file that provides extra information to the user such as:
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