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pik
C++2017–2025
google / pik · Archived

pik

A new lossy/lossless image format for photos and the internet

Creative & Media
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
12Distinct people
12Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
836GitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

A new lossy/lossless image format for photos and the internet

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year12 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2017-07-24 16:39:06 UTC to 2025-04-22 21:59:29 UTC.

012342017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 comments20172018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments20212022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC211
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

12 sources
cfreksen·Apr 22, 2025
This reminds me of the PIK image format (a precursor to JPEG XL) whose name happens to be a word for penis in some languages[0]. In the present case "SPH" is a kink/fetish term meaning "Small Penis Humiliation"[1]. I don't know how many people would think of that, though. I am not sure if the lesson is to try harder to avoid offence, or live with the fact that words can have multiple meanings and we can be "professional" enough to ignore some of those meanings in some contexts. [0]: https://github.com/google/pik/issues/6 [1]: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sph
In Sapphire: Rust based package manager for macOS (Homebrew replacement)
alwillis·Feb 4, 2024
> The argument is: (1) the cost is large -- implementation and maintenance of a complex image codec takes time, and image codecs are high-risk from a security perspective. If you look at the history of Google employees created the basis for JPEG XL [1], having it included in beta builds of Chrome and then removing it "for reasons", it's pretty obvious it wasn't pulled for technical or security reasons. Obviously Apple didn't think there were significant security and implementation issues preventing them from enabling JPEG XL on over 2 billion devices. The Chrome team has proposed a number of web features and APIs that Apple, Mozilla and sometimes Microsoft don't want to implement due to security and privacy reasons. Usually that doesn't stop Chrome from going ahead and shipping them anyway. > (2) the benefit is relatively small -- it nee
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ds to provide a clear advantage over existing alternatives like jpg, png, webp, avif in some significant general use cases. JPEG XL does provide advantages over existing alternatives—The Case for JPEG XL [2]: In the past, new image formats have been introduced that brought improvements in some areas while also introducing regressions in others. For example, PNG was a great improvement over GIF, except that it did not support animation. WebP brought compression improvements over JPEG in the low to medium fidelity range but at the cost of losing progressive decoding and high-fidelity 4:4:4 encoding. AVIF improved compression further, but at the cost of both progressive decoding and deployable encoders. We looked at six aspects of JPEG XL where it brings significant benefits over existing image formats: * Lossless JPEG recompression (20% on average) * Progressive decoding * Lossless compression performance * Lossy compression performance * Deployable encoder * Works across the workflow [1]: https://github.com/google/pik [2]: https://cloudinary.com/blog/the-case-for-jpeg-xl
In Still no love for JPEG XL: Browser maker love-in snubs next-gen image format
willtemperley·Jul 21, 2023
But they didn't even explain what FUIF or PIK might be in that section or even the entire article! To understand that article required me searching for FUIF [1], PIK [2] and a brief explanation of what JPEG XL is trying to achieve. I double down on my "complaint" - I'd call it constructive criticism - that article was poorly written. It's actually quite a good story that their Free Universal Image Format (FUIF) has achieved what it has. That's a great acronym, especially for a world that thinks JPEG XL is a good acronym! Why not put in in the article. To save anyone else time: [1] https://github.com/cloudinary/fuif [2] https://github.com/google/pik
In JPEG XL: How it started, how it’s going
yboris·Jun 23, 2020
Obligatory mention of FLIF [0], FUIF [1], pik [2], and JPEG XL [3] as well as Jon Sneyers FLIF & FUIF were created by Jon Sneyers - http://sneyers.info/ and are lossless but progressive, generating better resulting images at every step of the image download and brilliant mobile support (your browser can just stop downloading the image once it reaches the quality sufficient for the viewport). A new update on the JPEG XL is worth reading: --> https://cloudinary.com/blog/how_jpeg_xl_compares_to_other_im... [0] http://flif.info/ -- superseded by FUIF [1] https://cloudinary.com/blog/fuif_new_legacy_friendly_image_f... -- FLIF is lossless and amazing, in part absorbed by JPEG XL [2] https://github.com/google/pik - from Google, got absorbed by JPEG XL [3] https://cloudinary.com/blog/how_jpeg_xl_compares_to_other_im...
In Is WebP really better than JPEG?
undecidabot·Nov 23, 2019
Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/cloudinarymarketing/imagecon-2019... Background: JPEG XL is a combination of Cloudinary's FUIF [1] (successor of FLIF [2]) and Google's Pik [3]. Committee Draft (Aug 2019): https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.03565 Technical Details: https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of... Features / Goals: - high quality compression (> 60% over JPEG-1) - royalty-free with open source implementations available from the start - versatile: supports alpha transparency, high bit depth (16-bit), lossless compression, animations - progressive decoding / "responsive by design" - legacy-friendly: reversible transcoding of JPEGs with 22% size reduction (demo available [4]) Comparisons: - JPEG 2000, JPEG XR: only marginal compression improvements - WebP: limited (8-bit, 4:2:0), no progressive decoding - BPG/HEIF (HE
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VC): patent-encumbered (not royalty-free), no progressive decoding, complex - AVIF (AV1): no progressive decoding, complex, slow? [1] https://cloudinary.com/blog/introducing_fuif_responsive_imag... [2] http://flif.info/ [3] https://github.com/google/pik [4] https://google.github.io/brunsli/
In JPEG XL: Next-Generation of Image Format for the Internet [video]
BurningCycles·May 4, 2019
Well, BGP and HEIC (or rather HEIF as HEIC is just the container IIRC) uses HEVC which means royalties, so unless MPEGLA were to make images using HEVC royalty free, I can't see any scenario where it would replace jpeg. Webp is royalty free, but for lossy compression it's not a good enough improvement (imo) over jpeg for it to replace it. For lossless compression though, it beats PNG both in size and compression/decompression speed by a good margin. As for potential jpeg replacements, we have AVIF which is like BGP,HEIF but with the royalty free AV1 codec: https://aomediacodec.github.io/av1-avif/ And the other one I find very interesting is PIK, which is a new lossy/lossless codec that is supposedly a good improvement over jpeg while being very fast, and also has the feature of being able to losslessly recompress jpeg images into pik with
Read the rest
~20% compression: https://github.com/google/pik
In Unraveling the JPEG
blurred·May 3, 2019
"The JPEG XL Image Coding System (ISO/IEC 18181) has a richer feature set than existing codecs and can deliver images with similar quality at a third of the size of widely used alternatives." Its lossy part is being developed by Google PIK team ( https://github.com/google/pik ) + Jon Sneyers (author of FLIF) – some details: https://encode.ru/threads/3108-Google-s-compression-proje%D1... https://encode.ru/threads/2793-PIK-image-format
In JPEG XL is coming to store our photos at 1/3 size

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