References to Jpeg 2000 have been popping up in all the major graphic editors over the last few months. There's a very good reason for this - Jpeg 2000 is as important to the graphics community as PNG became several years ago. It's light in the filesize area and has limited scripting abilities (think a href = and title =), similar to the more familiar .jpg files. The filesize difference is impressive, about half a standard .jpg image, with similar parameters on appearance and suitability for graphics involving delicate shadings and fills. Additional impetus comes via the JPEG patent owner's recent decision to ask large sites and companies for very expensive licensing fees - Sony recently settled for several million dollars. Obviously, a new file format that looks the same (think PNG and GIF, now Jpeg2000 and JPG) and doesn't entail a large licensing fee is easier to adopt. The graphic this paragraph flows around is a .jpg file (35.1K).

The graphic that this paragraph flows around is a Jpeg2000 (J2K, JP2 and many others) of 17.3K. While many of the newest 2003 versions of graphic editors (and limited numbers of newer OS) automatically include the filters and plugins for this new type, some surfers may need them. We found the Morgan Multimedia, the Corel and the LuraTech JP2 plugins really awful (hideously bad). They were funny to install and didn't work consistently. The LuraTech one never did work on any JP2 file we threw at it. Then while surfing a Japanese site about the Susie32 Project's connection to JP2 development was found the most wonderful plugins for Jpeg2000 files. Easy to install, even if the instructions were in Japanese (which no one on the Pacoima Ranch Offices staff speaks). While the installation is essentially intuitive for advanced users, mid skill users might appreciate the instructions below (as always, download and install at own risk):

MS Internet Explorer ActiveX plugin control
Download and unzip. Place the .ocx in your main system file. Locate the .reg file (same folder as the .ocx was originally in) for your OS and doubleclick it. This should activate the .ocx as an ActiveX plugin control. If for some odd reason this doesn't work, open a DOS prompt (or use RUN) and type:

REGSVR32 C:\WinNT\System32\msj2kplg.ocx

Changing things as needed (main drive:\OS\sysdir\). One test computer had to have the .ocx dragged and dropped on top of regsvr32.exe to get it to actually function. The plugin is a true workhorse and has worked on every JP2 thrown at it. Research suggests it's the official JP2 for Internet Explorer and other ActiveX uses in Europe and Asia. The North American versions are all awful, we recommend this msj2kplg.ocx for Internet Explorer.

Opera and Netscape Plugin
Unzip and place the plugin (npj2kplg.dll) in the appropriate plugin folder of your favorite non IE browser. Kill all instances of the browser, then return to this page and the plugin will automatically come online.

A note on the above plugins: If you visit the Susie32 Project Jpeg2000 page and download from there, be sure to visit the 7Zip site and get the special de-archiver there. 7Zip files can NOT be unzipped by most unzippers. Both WinZip and WinRar claim they can, but they failed when we tried them on the .7z (7Zip) download files, but 7Zip did it first try.

Because it is both such an important graphic type (and one more potential .jpg replacement), this writing flows around a Flash panel (31.8K) done as a single frame. Many designers use this method to lighten pages. Flash single panels are frequently much smaller when exported via Flash 6 compressed mode than the same file as a true .jpg file is. The three samples on this page show this to be very true, though the smallest (and best looking for its size) is the Jpeg2000 file. The JP2 looks nearly identical to the .jpg file, yet is less than half the size. The SWF (Flash movie) looks very good in the photo-like parts of the image, but has artifact smearing on the solid color bars. Obviously, the only thing holding Jpeg2000 back at the moment is that not all browsers can see it yet. If the patent holder makes further large dollar demands on sites (unlike the GIF patent owner - CompuServe - who settled for a sliding $0, $5, $10 fee schedule built in to software pricing) expect a stampede to this new photo perfect standard.

Now that you can see Jpeg2000 and have an idea how they look and the filesizes involved as compared to other Jpeg similar formats, how do you go about MAKING bitmaps into Jpeg2000 files? Check the homepages of your favorite graphic editors, many are offering plugins and filters to allow Jpeg2000 export. There are also freeware standalone applications that turn bitmaps into JP2 files. The one that all testers liked the best is Jpeg 2000 Compressor from Anything3D. It features a side-by-side work panel so you can see how the resulting JP2 will look. Like its older namesake, JP2 frequently suffers from artifacts in the finished render, though JP2 artifacts are round, unlike the .jpg ones, which are blocky. Best results were achieved using true bitmaps, .jpg to JP2 resulted many times in compound image degradation from there being two potential lossy formats at once (think 20% .jpg). Compressions in the 10% (1:10) to 1% (1:100) range seemed to work best, with 1.25% (1:80) being a good average compression.

There are also several other programs out there to make JP2 files. MeeSoft's Image Analyzer claims to be very easy to use, but all our testers got when trying it were error messages. Similar problems abounded with SVG Factory, none of the testers could decipher the instructions ("copy to clipboard, then finish exporting as a bitmap or JPG, then copy to ..."). Keep your eyes open for your favorite graphic editor to natively support this most important new graphic soon!