Supported AVIF Image format

[newt]

Is anyone aware if AVIF support is in the works?
I searched the forum here but didn't see any posts about it.

There's a bunch of test images from Netflix here
Firefox and Chromium both have open issues for adding support, and with the interest in the format I thought there should be at least one request here for the time being

[newt]

Update: I am mildly dumb, but not that dumb.

Irfanview appears to be able to load some avif images using the Microsoft av1 extension
however it doesn't work with the `ftypavif` header, if you edit the header to `ftypmif1` it is able to load the image just fine

So uhh change the feature request to supporting the other header I guess

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Have you sent the feature request to Irfan Skiljan yet?
See the IrfanView Help menu, About IrfanView for his address.

AVIF seems to be an OpenSource format.

[mdw]

I'd like to bump this up. As far as I can test, there's no functional support for AVIF reading (not to speak of writing) in IrfanView. For example this suite of test images: http://https://github.com/link-u/avif-sample-images -- none of these will be correctly opened by the most recent IrfanView version.

The implementation should not be very difficult as reference codec library libavif is available from AOMedia.

[Jaaaaames]

The plug-in (https://www.irfanview.com/plugins.htm) page says:

• TOOLS - (version 4.56): contains some additional functions/features for IrfanView
  (and some special formats, like: HEIC, AVIF; with installed codecs/extensions)

But cannot see AVIF in the Open or Save dialogbox.??

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

In the file open dialog it lists HEIC/AVIF. You can also select All Files or All supported Graphic Files.

IrfanView does not support the saving of all file formats; just open. It only saves common image formats.

[HansSchulze]

I don't want to pester the Man about that sort of thing, but I do have 4.57/64/plugins. I would love to convert poorly saved JPG files from 108Mpixels down to HEIC. Apparently quite the saver.
I am a contributing member.

I would like the ability to batch convert fat JPG files to HEIC (or equivalent).

[JendaLinda]

At this point, IrfanView can only read pictures in the HEIF format family (including AVIF and HEIC). It depends on the system libraries installed in Windows.

[try_it20]

Using the latest 64bits version 4.58 of IrfanView, and the accompanying plugins have also been installed. Opening a AVIF file works but is not sharp, it's blurry/blocked. Opening AVIF file in Browser results in a much higher definition of the image to be displayed. I also have the AV1 Video Extension and the HEIF IMage Extension installed from the Microsoft Store.

It would be great to be able to have a sharp image being displayed in Irfanview, like it is in the browser, and the option to convert the HEIC/AVIF image to another format like PNG or JPG

For now I revert back to https://cloudconvert.com/avif-to-jpg to convert AVIF to JPG

[JendaLinda]

Can you provide an example file, where the issue is visible? Please ZIP the original file and attach it to your comment.

[D20]

Would probably be best to change the request to full AVIF support at this point, especially for the batch converter saving is more important since the entire point of the new compression is to save space.

[JendaLinda]

Agreed, read/write AVIF support should be added in IrfanView eventually. Major web browsers are getting AVIF support already. Microsoft's AVIF implementation is quite limited and doesn't support some variants of the AVIF format.

[HansSchulze]

I don't want to pester the Man about that sort of thing, but I do have 4.57/64/plugins. I would love to convert poorly saved JPG files from 108Mpixels down to HEIC. Apparently quite the saver.
I am a contributing member.

I would like the ability to batch convert fat JPG files to HEIC (or equivalent).

Bonk.

Any news about if it is possible to support HEIC/HEIF writing, can it be done, is there a patent or royalty issue, something that can be bought or paid for? I have a terabyte of HEIF and another of JPG. What's better than HEIF, if there is something?

[JendaLinda]

Adding support for writing HEIC is unlikely. HEIC is not that useful. Web browsers are not going to support HEIC at all.

If you needa a better format, check out JPEG XL. It's designed as a successor of JPEG and PNG. JPEG XL can be enabled in IrfanView. It can also losslessly compress your old JPG files. That's very useful for archiving photo collections. Compressed JPG images can be converted back to the exact same JPGs if needed. To convert JPG to JPEG XL (JXL) losslessly, cjxl program is needed.

There's no point converting your HEIF files however, as they are already heavily compressed.

[HansSchulze]

Google source code just removed support for XL last week.

I can't find a single XL image or website using Google search.

Just to be clear, I want to convert JPG to lossless HEIF, and it doesn't make sense to recompress a HEIF to XL.

I have found a company that makes image conversion software, which will charge a serious customization fee for that feature. A company I have never heard of before, despite 40 years working with image files.