support packjpg

[maadjordan]

when we shall see packjpg suuport (read/write)
http://www.elektronik.htw-aalen.de/packJPG/

[xnview]

I've sent an email to the author... but currently no reply

[iycgtptyarvg]

I'd like to bump this thread, because the size differences are amazing!
Nowadays everyone makes tons of pictures with their phone, and they really add up on my SSD.

So, is there any word about this?
A new version came out just a couple of months ago, so it's still being developed.

Edit:
Oh, I forgot to mention the most important part: it's now open source!!!

[xnview]

Oh, I forgot to mention the most important part: it's now open source!!!

Ok, i'll check

[iycgtptyarvg]

Fantastic!!!

[Drahken]

Compressed PJG files are not compatible between different packJPG
versions. You will get an error message if you try to decompress PJG
files with a different version than the one used for compression.

^This is a major flaw with this. The compressed format needs to be standardized, or at least for the newer versions of the program to be able to decode the older formats. With each program version creating different formatted images, but using the same extension for each, anyone who tries to open an image they compressed a long time ago or got from someone else will be completely screwed.

[iycgtptyarvg]

I noticed the same thing. But, to me it's not a huge problem.

Whenever there is a new version, I simply run a very simple batch file which converts all my pictures to the newer format in 1 go. I would still dearly like to have this plugin/support.

I hope this can be integrated, so I can have a significantly smaller footprint on my SSD.
I currently have 348,483,744,075 bytes of photos, so 25% off of that would be extremely useful.

[Drahken]

You might be better off converting them to a different, more standardized, format. WEBP, JPEG-XR, or Jpeg2000 for example. One or more of those might be able to achieve comparable compression improvement, plus they all have the advantages of having a stabilized format, and of having support in multiple programs. If you save your pics in WEBP for example, you could then open those same images 10 years from now, on a different computer, in any of a dozen programs, and be able to view them without any difficulty (and without having to re-convert them every few months).

[iycgtptyarvg]

You're probably not familiar with PackJpg, because it's not a picture format. It's an archiver.
PackJpg is 100% lossless!

[Drahken]

I know that packjpg is an archiver and that it recompresses JPGs without any additional loss of data. I even tried it out once, some time ago. The size improvement was "ok", but the fact that no other program in existance can open or view it made it pretty well useless. That issue is compounded by the lack of backwards compatability within the program/file format, which sits in direct contrast to it's use as an archiver. Archiving something means preserving it, but when you can't open it later, what's the point?

Now, keeping in mind that the JPG format itself is very lossless, converting the images (once only) to a different lossy format won't make a huge difference in quality (as long as you're careful & test out the settings you use before comitting yourself). You will then wind up with images which are comparable in filesize to the packJPG ones, can be opened in nearly any program, and will still be compatable with future programs.

A better idea than packJPG would be to go out & get some black DVDs to burn your images to. Blank discs are extremely cheap these days. File size doesn't really matter, because you can just spread them over more discs. Granted, it's kind of a pain to put the discs in every time you want to view the images, but certainly no more so than having to unpack them in order to view them, and at least if you put the JPGs onto a DVD, you can then view them with any imaging program you want.

[iycgtptyarvg]

Thanks for the thorough reply Drakhen.

Burned CDs/DVDs are terribly unreliable. Besides, 348GB / 4.7GB = 74 DVDs!!! That is patently ridiculous.

25% off without any loss is fantastic. If there is a plugin for XnView which can decompress them on the fly then it's only a little bit slower than jpg.

I also have 458,767,288,644 bytes of comicbooks (cbz/cbr format = zip/rar format). If I could convert them from jpg to pjg that would reduce this directory with more than 100GB.

[iycgtptyarvg]

I got an email message from the creator of PackJpg and thought it would be an interesting read for others as well:

Hi,

first of all: sorry to keep you waitig that long. I've been very busy these last few days, so a few emails didn't get a reply on time.

I'm Matthias Stirner, the developer of packJPG. Thanks for your interest in my work!

In fact, I've been in contact with Pierre (the author of XNview) in the past. I even made a packJPG library for him to use in XNview. At some point, there was even experimental .pjg support. However, the library I gave Pierre was still a bit buggy and there was still the fact that packJPG was an evolving format (which it still might be today ). So, to my knowledge, theres no .PJG support in XNview right now, although that would be great.

With the now released packJPG source code it is possible to compile a stable and reliable packJPG library (instructions are included in the archive). This would make a good starting point for generic PJG support in XNView. However, packJPG is still dependent on the JPG-format, which means that to use the library you first have to create a JPG file from image data, which is impractical, but not as bad as one might think. Converting to and from JPG using the IJG libraries is pretty fast anyways, plus you could use the same setting dialogues as for JPG.

With a few modfications to the packJPG source code it would also be possible to bypass JPG and create PJG from image data. It is not even very complicated, basically you'd have to "marry" a very simple baseline JPEG codec with packJPG and throw out the unused stuff afterwards (huffman coding and decoding f.e.). However this means work, possibly a lot of it, so this is just an idea .

> Is there anything you could do on your side to promote this too?

In fact I've got a suggestion: Possibly Pierre is reluctant to include packJPG because of its current licensing (GPL v3). The solution (if that's the case): I could re-release it under the LGPL, or I could also give Pierre special permission to use the library in XNview.
Whatever is needed, as long as it doesn't mean that someone makes tons of money from it without giving anything back.

I hope that helps!


Kind regard,
Matthias