JPEG XL is useful today
$ sudo apt install jpeg-xl-tools
$ cjxl in.jpg out.jxl
$ djxl out.jxl original.jpg
$ sha256sum *
04319b26a0fae3498dc3ec7601398f39d8dc91fe137fb80c954feef388d4e5b1 in.jpg
04319b26a0fae3498dc3ec7601398f39d8dc91fe137fb80c954feef388d4e5b1 original.jpg
f9a78a9b5ae4b6171e60ef97a9a9176866568844338ef9f40d2fdd60d350e430 out.jxl
$ ls -lh
total 17M
-rw-r--r-- 1 james james 6.0M May 13 21:50 in.jpg
-rw-rw-r-- 1 james james 6.0M May 13 21:56 original.jpg
-rw-rw-r-- 1 james james 4.9M May 13 21:56 out.jxl
Even though cameras don't (yet) produce JPEG XL files natively, and even though browsers are dragging their heels on support, it's still useful today as a special-purpose compression algorithm for archiving existing libraries of JPEG files.
cjxl will shave 22% off the size of existing JPEGs, and djxl will rehydrate back to the exact original file. This is a real and substantial cost saving when sending them to deep archive storage.
This backwards compatibility is the killer app that makes JPEG XL the inevitable next-gen image format (well, that plus brand recognition). Other technical merits are secondary. It's only a matter of time before the browsers and camera manufacturers come round.
JPEG XL browser support status
AVIF browser support status
software
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