Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

I uploaded some images to my desktop to print and I could not figure out why it wasn't showing in qimage, it seems qimage supports a lot file formats, why is this popular one missing?

What is the suffix of the file?
Apple iphones make jpgs

High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIC) is a new image container format from the developers of MPEG, a popular audio and video compression standard. HEIC will be used by default on new photos on iOS 11, and it's designed to save you storage space.

In googling the format, it simply says, that WINDOWS will not read this new format, and it needs to be converted to JPG.
Many free converters available.
Fred

not useful information fred!

i can see the images on my windows 10

Sorry I am not helpful.
You didn't mention that before.
Is windows reading the new format or have you converted it to JPG?
If you converted to JPG and Qimage will not read it, please send an image to me at wathree.ssz@verizon.net
I will see that Mike gets it very quickly and he can dissect the file header and perhaps make it work.

Fred

Just for my own knowledge, I downloaded a couple of HEIC images and with a free app from Microsoft installed, I printed from that app, and also from Qimage. The app makes an easy conversion to JPG.
I click the image in the folder, then OPEN WITH, the program displays the image and there's a button to MAKE A JPG copy.
It's all there.
Thanks for your help
Fred

A bit more info-
Re screen shot: As you see, I created a HEIC copy and a JPG copy from the original NEF raw file. The new HEIC format is indeed designed to save space.

     HEIC file size 1.44 MB
      JPG  file size 3.73 MB
NEF RAW file size 15.2 MB

With the correct HEIC codec and a photo editor that is HEIC format file aware, windows 10 works ok.
I think I am correct to say that Q/U is not HEIC aware in v2019.124 as yet. Might this be a wishlist request for Mike?
Regards, Alan.

Of course making QU read HEIC seems daunting in that nothing outside of Apple reads it without some extra app, it is totally Mike's call.
If the motivation is space saving, and 2 Terrabyte  hard drives selling for 60 dollars, I would have a difficult time justifying the effort.
Fred

No Fred, definitely not  space saving Ive been testing the HEIC format re-ease of editing etc,
I think the HEIC file format is slightly better in many respects than the JPG, I think over time it may become a standard format

Regards Alan 

My photo editor is from ZONER it is a HEIC file format aware photo editor.

Regards Alan

Remember the DNG format; the JP2000 format? Also Supposed to be the bees knees.
Best editing is still raw format.
Wish you the best.
Fred

OK - another county heard from.  FWIW, I read that the HEIC format is based on the same discrete cosine transform algorithm as Jpeg,  The difference is that it allows variable block sizes based on the what's in the pixels - that's why it is a space saver.  But Fred is right - time will tell whether it has legs or not.

I think the topic of this thread is that Apple will be using HEIC file format as default. That said, it would be really useful for both
Qimage One and Q/U to be able to print the HEIC format without having convert to JPG first. Again on the wishlist for Mike
You're right Fred, Raw is law - just did a wedding, all shot in NEF Raw.
Hoping to be able to print HEIC file format pics soon  :) ;D
Regards Alan

Whether using jpeg or HEIC you are throwing away a lot of image data by converting to those formats.Editing with less data available is not normally good practice for quality images.

Many of us who use QU for printing, print from the raw file in QU. The raw refine feature in QU is unusual but clever and produces excellent results. The image editor has good features too, like deep focus (no artifacts) sharpening so further improvements can be made there.
Printing from the raw file is the better HD spacer saver as there is no need to create extra images.
Terry

terry-m where do you have these stats about many of us using qimage print from raw!! i do not. qimage at the end is a printing tool, the raw conversion is a hack and not usable me, next time give lightroom a try

IMHO, the raw processing is no hack and works well for me. I've tried quite a few and keep coming back to Qimage. As for the Apple format, after reading various articles, the jury is still out. Not much supports it yet and it may or may not become a popular standard, save for phone images in a storage sparse environment. As mentioned in a post above, history is not on its side. OTOH, maybe Mike will decide it's a desirable feature.

HEIC suports 16 bit images, JPG suports 8 bit images.

As far as I know it is a fully proprietary format, what is bad. But even worst, it is protected by many copyrights.
So the only persons that have a benefit from this format are the financial departements of apple and google and other big software player that try to make us dependent on there products.
So my advice: don't use this format!

Winfried

Winfried,
You have my vote. Agree 100%
Fred

It looks like I can probably get HEIC support added into the 2020 edition.  I'm currently working on QU 2020 which should be out by early October.

Mike

Thank you

You always come through Mike!!!

Adding my thanks also Mike looking forward to the 2020 QU release.

Regards, Alan