Why JPEG XL Ignoring Bit Depth Is Genius (And Why AVIF Can’t Pull It Off)
Blog TechnologyWhy JPEG XL Ignoring Bit Depth Is Genius (And Why AVIF Can’t Pull It Off)Kelly ThompsonOctober 25, 2025People often ask me what I mean when I say “JPEG XL is simply the best thought out and forward thinking image formats there is. Nothing else is close.” This is article is just one example of why.When I heard that JPEG XL’s encoder doesn’t care about bit depth, it sounded almost reckless (and I was downright confused). In a world obsessed with 8-bit, 10-bit, 12-bit precision wars, shouldn’t bit depth be fundamental? Isn’t more bits always better?Here’s the twist: ignoring bit depth isn’t a limitation. It turns out it might be a brilliant design decision for modern image compression. And it reveals a fundamental philosophical difference between JPEG XL and…
