JPEG compression

The JPEG compression method is best suited for grayscale or color images. A typical example of an image for which JPEG compression is advised is a continuous-tone photograph. This type of image contains more information (more detail) than can be reproduced on screen or in print. Therefore, it makes sense to remove the information that cannot be displayed anyway. This can result in a loss of image quality, as the compression method removes information: it is called a lossy reduction method. However, file sizes are greatly reduced by JPEG compression.

The JPEG compression method cannot be used for:
  • Images with indexed color space
  • Images with tiling color space
  • Images with shading color space
  • Images with bits per components different from 8
  • Images of which the number of channels is less than 4