# JPEG XL

Published articles for JPEG XL.

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## Journey to JPEG XL: How open source experiments shaped the future of image coding

DevFeed: [Journey to JPEG XL: How open source experiments shaped the future of image coding](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/journey-to-jpeg-xl-how-open-source-experiments-shaped-the-future-of-image-coding-34312.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<http://opensource.googleblog.com/2026/06/journey-to-jpeg-xl-how-open-source-experiments-shaped-the-future-of-image-coding.html>)

Author: Google Open Source (noreply@blogger.com)

Published: 2026-06-03T18:30:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Google Open Source Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/google-open-source-blog.md>)

Topics: [coding](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/coding.md>), [Compression](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/compression.md>), [Open Source](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/open-source.md>), [Optimization](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/optimization.md>), [color](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/color.md>), [Internet](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/internet.md>)

Tags: [coding](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/coding.md>), [color](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/color.md>), [compression](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/compression.md>), [image](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/image.md>), [image-compression](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/image-compression.md>), [internet](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/internet.md>), [jpeg](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/jpeg.md>), [jpeg-xl](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/jpeg-xl.md>), [open-source](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/open-source.md>), [optimization](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/optimization.md>), [web](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/web.md>)

### AI overview

The article traces the development of JPEG XL through earlier open-source experiments, including WebP Lossless, Brotli, Butteraugli, Guetzli, and Brunsli. It explains how work on entropy coding, context modeling, psychovisual metrics, color representation, and JPEG compression informed the newer image format.

### Source excerpt

by Jyrki Alakuijala, Zoltán Szabadka & Luca Versari, Paradigms of Intelligence, Google Technology & Society Building the Next Generation Image Standard The internet runs on images. Since the early days of the web, there has been a relentless tension between visual fidelity and bandwidth. For decades, the industry relied on the venerable JPEG standard for images loading fast. It served us remarkably well, but as displays moved to High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Wide Color Gamut (WCG), the format began to show its limits. The road to JPEG XL (JXL) wasn't a straight line. It was a decade-long exploration, creating a series of milestone projects testing radical ideas in psychovisual modeling, entropy coding, and optimization. Today, as JPEG XL sees rapid adoption across operating systems and professional standards, we're looking back at the experiments that made it possible. The Early Foundation: 2011-2017 Our study began with a focus on understanding the limits of existing technology. We didn't start by trying to write a new standard; we started by trying to make the current ones better, and learning their limitations. This allowed us to make the new formalism more flexible and efficient in the right places. WebP Lossless and Brotli: Lossy WebP drew its lineage from video technology, the WebP Lossless (2011) represented an architectural and scoping departure. We debuted the entropy image concept, an innovative method utilizing a secondary image to orchestrate the selection of static entropy codes for the primary visual data. We reapplied this approach later with data-driven context modeling in the Brotli compression format, enabling rich context modeling without slowing decoding. Butteraugli: Around 2014, we realized that raw mathematical compression (PSNR) wasn't enough, and simple psychovisual approximations (SSIM and similar) failed in color-rich environments. We built Butteraugli and the XYB color space to mimic the human visual system's edge detection and opponent-co