History of JPG/JPEG

JPEG or JPG  stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group and it is a file format that is able to store images. This standard was accepted in 1992. The extension they most commonly use is .jpg or .jpeg and very uncommonly .jpe. And they are all accepted written in upper cases as well.

The JPEG standard

When you use jpg or jpeg extension, the information on the digital image is stored with loss as it uses compression to size down and store the image. It will still give the user an enjoyable image, but there are considerable changes to it.

It is a good way to store images in jpg/jpeg in case of having colourful pictures - photographers like to use it by choice - , but this format is not very successful for images with sharp edges like diagrams and so forth. For those, they commonly use lossless compression formats like .png or .gif. Due to compression, an image with the extension of jpg or jpeg only takes up a few MB, therefore it is practical to store them in huge quantity or just simply transfer them, or use them in programs.

JPG or JPEG?

As you could see, I was using the name jpg and jpeg at the same time in all cases. And the reason for it is because they are the same, except for the minus one character in jpg.

The original extension was jpeg (as it initials Joint Photographic Expert Group), but early versions of Windows did only accept an extension of three letters maximum. To cause no harm, it was shortened to jpg, but it stands for the same thing. Other operating systems such as macOS is approved to use four letter formats and the latter version of Windows also adapted to it, so it is equivalent to use jpg and jpeg for the same image.

How popular is JPEG?

Also, jpeg/jpg is one of the, if not the most popular image file format extension. It is accepted in most programs, so there is not really a risk for having to change the format in order to get it through.

Most users are still using the jpg extension format because they probably just got used to it and perhaps many doesn’t know that there is no difference between jpg and jpeg.