"Chris B" <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote:
> "Charles C" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message
> news:web.4ac9720b3f8a411cac4259f0@news.povray.org...
> > I'd never heard of "+fj"!   It's always seemed missing even if jpeg is a
> > better
> > distribution format than a "mastering" format.  I can imagine there being
> > some
> > rare uses.  That said, I have to agree with Trevor's comment. :)
> >
>
> Well, yes and no. JPEG is a lossy format (it's designed that way), but I
> find it by far and away the most convenient when working on graphics
> destined for web pages. Any implication that it's not a worthy format to be
> supported by POV-Ray makes me a tad nervous. I think it should find its way
> into the documentation, with a warning that it's not a loss-free format and
> that the results will unavoidably contain JPEG artifacts. People could then
> simply use another format for any process that requires some sort of top
> quality master.
>
> Regards,
> Chris B.

Sorry, no anxiety intended. ;)  I agree JPEG output is a good option to have
available.  One feature which could make it even better would be a quality
option. For example "+fjxx" where "xx" is a numeric quality level similar to
what you can enter when saving a JPEG in GIMP.

(Disclaimer: I don't know just how quick or easy this would be to implement, and
I imagine it would be of relatively low priority compared to other things.)

I think depending on the content of an image, JPEG can be more distracting than
at other times.  For instance, I tried +fj on a test render with very simple
textures, some fine detail and a blue sky sphere.  It looked bad.   I suspect
the more a rendering looks like a photo (i.e. no shortage of detail so you're
not staring at one little spot which you can't see clearly), the less
distracting JPEG artifacts might be for a given compression level.

Charles

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