PNG Images Now Officially Support These Improvements

We have all used PNG images vigorously for years – it is one of the most used image standards, and it has been around for decades. The PNG standard has obtained an update to follow current times, and it supports a range of modern features now.

The format of portable network graphics (PNG) has received its first significant specification update since 2003. PNG is one of those things that most people simply imply not “update” because it is already good enough and supports most of the features we need. However, our image needs have changed since 2003, and the PNG standard is now updated to reflect these changing needs and remain relevant as an image format.

As for what changes here, PNG now has appropriate HDR support. This allows PNG images to represent a much wider range of colors and luminance, similar to what the human eye can perceive. The implementation is also quite effective, requiring only four bytes of data plus standard general costs. With HDR Media being commonplace, it is pleasant to see that the PNG will also support HDR.

Another major development is official recognition of the animated PNG format (APNG). Originally offered by Mozilla, APNG has experienced growing support through the main web browsers and applications in recent years. By incorporating APNG into the official specification, the format now has a standardized base for animations, so if you were not a gif fan, you will now have a neat and loss -free format that you can also use for animated images.

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The new update also standardizes the inclusion of Exif data. This allows the storage of precious metadata directly in the PNG file, such as copyright information, camera settings and GPS location. This brings the PNG tied with other photographic formats and improves its usefulness in professional and archival contexts. You can already add exif data to PNG files, but it takes place through extensions or unofficial methods. However, this is a native implementation of Exif which should put it on equality with formats like JPG.

Support for the new PNG specification is already quite widespread, so you should have no problem making these “new” PNG images anywhere. The main web browsers, including Chrome, Safari and Firefox, as well as operating systems like iOS and MacOS, and professional software such as Photoshop, Davinci Resolve and Avid Media Composer, have implemented the support for these new features.

For the future, the PNG working group has already started working even more updates. The fourth future edition should focus on improving interoperability between HDR content and standard dynamic range (SDR). Following this, the fifth edition will bring improved compression algorithms (the size of the image is still sometimes a problem with PNG) and the support for coding and parallel decoding. So, after more than two decades of almost nothing, we should now obtain semi-frequent updates of the PNG standard. Neat.

Source: W3C via Programmax, Thorsten Leemhuis (Bluesky)