PNG – The big return of the format that refuses to die | Dev Tools

Well, I know what you are going to tell me: “Png? For example, Serious korben? However, We are in 2025. For example, you tell us about an image format that dates from the time when we still listen to Britney Spears on our CD readers?»Eh bah imagine that this good old format PNG Who has been sleeping quietly for 20 years has just woken up. Moreover, and he obviously took vitamins during his sleep!

It is thanks to the W3C Timed Text Working Group which was looking for a solution to manage the HDR. Furthermore, in their projects that it all started. Meanwhile, They said to themselves “Here, what if we dusted this good old PNG a little?”And there. For example, let’s go to Fast & Furious mode with Adobe, Apple, Google, the BBC and many other tech giants who have decided to transform png – big return format this format today vintage (but still widely used) into a real modern racing beast.

So what changes concretely in this PNG Third Edition ? In addition, First, the official support of animations! In addition, Yes. the Apng (Animated PNG) which already existed but which were a bit of the bizarre cousin that we did not invite family meetings, are now officially in the SPEC. No more pixelated GIFs with their 256 colors in the Minitel era. make way for 24 or 48 -bit animations with real alpha transparency.

The really cool thing is that the APNGs remain completely compatible with classic PNG decoders. The first frame is stored as a normal PNG image. so even your old Internet Explorer 6 browser (if you are masochistic enough png – big return format to use it again) can display something. This is called well thought out, not like some formats *cough* Webp *cough* who force you to redo everything.

But wait, it’s not over because the PNG now supports the HDR (High Dynamic Range) with a rather intelligent implementation. While the second edition was limited to the SDR (Standard Dynamic Range). the new version includes the CICP (Coding Independent Code Points) which makes it possible to manage colorimetric spaces in a super compact manner. Basically. with only 4 bytes plus the standard Overhead of Chunks PNG, you can now display colors that will make your retinas cry on an HDR10 screen.

Metadata Exifthat is to say this small info concerning the camera. the focal length, the GPS coordinates and the whole tralala, are now officially supported too. Before, it was a bit of a bazaar with each software that was drumming in its corner. Now. png – big return format there’s a very clean chunk in the spec, and even the orientation of the image (you know when your photo is upside down because you keep your phone anyway) is managed correctly.

Note that browsers based on the Blink rendering engine (Chrome. Edge, Samsung Internet & Mldr;), Firefox, and Webkit (Safari) already support the APNG. On iOS 9.0+, macOS 10.11+ and TVOS 9.0+, it is directly integrated into the bone.

Apple uses it even for animated stickers in Imessage! And the Libpng library supports CICP since version 1.6.45, so developers can already have fun with it.

For HDR metadata. we also now have the Maxfall (Maximum Frame Average Light Level) and Maxcll (Maximum Content Light Level) which are required for HDR10 content. The chunk ‘clli’ is only 8 bytes because it is really optimized to the small onions. suddenly, compared to certain modern formats which embark tons of unnecessary metadata, it is great png – big return format art in terms of minimalism.

And the team behind this renaissance of the PNG does not intend to stop there since they already work on better HDR/SDR interoperability. improved compression techniques (because good, even if the PNG compresses well, we can always do better), and future editions to continue to develop the format.

In short, it’s a great news for everyone. First the web developers who will be able to use a format that they already know well with modern features. but also for designers who will have more flexibility, and finally, we will enjoy better quality images without having to install 50 bizarre codecs.

This new version of PNG proves that an existing standard can very well modernize rather than reinventing the wheel every. 5 years with a new format that no one supports correctly.

It’s beautiful anyway!

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