Why does JPEG-compressed text still look readable on screen?
Asked 4/29/2024
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I’m testing cellphone photos of printed repair-manual pages to estimate storage needs for a large digitization project. The pages have very clean, even black text on white paper. After exporting to JPEG at very low quality settings, the pages still look quite legible when viewed at tablet screen size. Is that expected behavior with JPEG compression, especially for high-contrast printed text, or is screen viewing just hiding the damage?
Originally by The _traveler. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
The _traveler
2y ago
2 Answers
2
Does well printed black text stay essentially unchanged on a highly compressed image of a page of text?
No. You can always make smash potatoes from a file.
You need to define what you mean by "stay essentially unchanged" You are using two specific words (stay unchanged) bonded by a very loose one (essentially).
Another word we need to define is "Quality at 10%". Quality is a process, that can not be represented as a percentage.
Let me link you to a really old test I did but defining 10% of the file size vs. an uncompressed file. Those are real numbers we can compare.
It is in Spanish, but I want you to see that some areas are affected more than others. A perfect black on the right image means no change in the information.
https://otake.com.mx/Apuntes/PruebasDeCompresion/3-CompresionJpg10Porciento.htm
But another point is that there is not just 1 JPG algorithm. There are at least two. One that uses smaller blocks. Some programs define it as 4:4:4 or 1x blocks.
But, in my opinion, as you are asking on a photography site, not in a document archival site:
Save your original photos. The cost of 1 or 2 GB of disk space, vs the work you are investing in taking the photos, is INSIGNIFICANT.
When you are ready to deliver or generate a PDF, then you can play with the compression and resolution. If for some reason you need a change, you go back to your originals.
Originally by Rafael. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Rafael
2y ago
0
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Yes, that can make sense. JPEG compression does not leave the image unchanged, but some content survives compression better than other content. Clean black text on a mostly uniform white page is a simple, high-contrast subject, so it may remain readable even after strong compression, especially when viewed only at screen size.
Two cautions:
- JPEG always throws away information. If you compress enough, you can definitely damage text.
- What looks fine on a tablet may still show artifacts if you zoom in, reprocess the image, or need archival-quality detail.
Also, “10% quality” is not a reliable technical measure by itself because different software uses quality scales differently. A better test is to compare actual output files and inspect where compression artifacts appear.
So: readable on-screen at high compression is plausible, but the text is not "essentially unchanged" in a strict sense. For digitization, judge based on your real use case: screen reading, zooming, OCR, and long-term preservation may all require different quality levels.
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