Lossy DNGs with JPEG-XL compression

The ability to export lossy DNGs compressed with JPEG-XL would give me one less reason to hang onto my Adobe subscription and invest the savings into purchasing Nik Collection 7, which would give me HDR, removing yet another reason to hang onto Lightroom Classic. It’s a virtuous cycle.

Adobe DNG converter is free to usE … and it works from command line ( https://helpx.adobe.com/content/dam/help/en/photoshop/pdf/dng_commandline.pdf ) - so you can export from DxO PL to a custom made script that will do it for you ( lossless DNG → lossy DNG )

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Indeed. If I have anything to do with format conversion or DNGs, my first stop is the free DNG converters from Adobe.

There is also the free and open source JPEG-XL reference converter.

I was surprised to recently read that macOS already supports JPEG-XL in some places (notably Preview and Finder). So I installed the reference tool and very simply converted a JPEG to JPEG-XL.

I can confirm, by the way, that the JPEG-XL file was visually identical and also smaller in file size.

This is consistent with other indications that Apple has begun its move away from JPEG and HEIF. For example, the iPhone 16 Pro / Pro Max introduces ProRaw DNG (JPEG-XL) output in both lossy and lossless formats.

This recent article provides some background:

Why Apple Uses JPEG XL in the iPhone 16 and What it Means for Your Photos | PetaPixel-

Thanks, folks. Very informative and helpful. Being allergic to coding, I’ll stick with DNG Convertor.