“Most of the common image formats on the web today were established over a decade ago and are based on technology from around that time“, stated the article. It was this that caused some of the engineers at Google to try to come up with a way to further compress lossy images (like an alternative to JPEG) without losing quality of resolution.

With that came the release of a developer preview of a new image format called WebP. WebP promises to significantly reduce the byte size of photos on the web, allowing websites to load much faster.

What Is WebP & How Does It Work?

WebP (pronounced “weppy”) is a method of lossy compression that can be used on images. “A WebP file consists of VP8 image data, and a container based on RIFF.”

It uses predictive coding to encode your images, meaning that it uses the values in neighboring blocks of pixels to predict values in a block, and then encodes only the difference between the prediction and actual values. Since residuals contain a lot of zero values, this allows for much more effective compression.

The degree of compression is adjustable so a user can choose the trade-off between file size and image quality.

Does It Really Work?

To showcase and compare WebP’s performance with other image formats, Google has shared some open-source images (along with file size) so you can see for yourself.

Google is also releasing a conversion tool that you can use to convert images to the WebP format. Native support for WebP is also expected in an upcoming release of the Google Chrome browser.

What are your thoughts on this subject? Will WebP be good for the Web?

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I want to point out that we will not be able to differentiate between a small edit and a BIG edit. We can tell if an image HAS been edited from its original file but not by how much or what.

So if you are trying to tell if Suzy O’s picture is legit you can use JpegSnoop to see if the picture has been altered or it is still in its original form (when it was taken by a digital camera). But you will not be able to tell if Suzy added a border to the image after the shot was taken if it was modified any more than that.

Am I making sense? You can see if it was edited but not how much.

Let’s take a look at the program!

First you should download the 532KB zip file containing the 1.3MB executable file from the author’s home page, Impulse Adventure.

Like I said before, it is portable and does not have to be installed. I ran it and this is what I saw:

This is not an installer, just an license agreement and a check box to automatically check for updates. I believe these settings are saved somewhere as the second time I opened JPEGsnoop it did not give me this window or options. After that you can change your update preferences within the program’s configuration.

Check the “I have read the terms” box and click OK. Then you will be show the program’s main window as you can see below:

I immediately grabbed a digital picture I had modified and opened it up with JPEGsnoop. It was a 7KB JPG file with image modifications. I got this note that said it only scans in a low res version of the image and it will be fast. You have the option to open the file as is but it will take longer. Either which way click OK and move on.

I was instantly shown my images’ details as you can see below:

There is so much information included in the final report.  The middle of the report was removed due to space limitations you can grab the whole report as a txt file here: report.

The last paragraph is what you are looking for though ““ It is titled “Assessment”. Here it says “Image is processed/edited”. And directly above that you can find out what program was used to edit this image. Is it full proof? Hell no! But it is better than having no scientific basis for your picture assumptions! Do you use a similar tool? Let us know your favorite JPG analyzer program in the comments.

Also maybe you want to point us to some JPG’s on the web and see if we can figure out if the images are photoshopped or original?

When you take a picture with a digital camera, your camera embeds information into your image which contains a thumbnail, as well as the type of camera you used to take the picture and some other interesting tidbits.

You might be thinking – SO WHAT? If I am posting my picture online what the frick do I care if the thumbnail of my image is embedded. Sure if you have nothing to hide than you should not be worried.

But if you are snapping pictures with a stolen camera or you are editing your images to hide something contained in them ““ then you should be aware of MetaData, and know how to remove that metadata from photos. That’s right the thumbnail is NOT updated as you edit the image, it is the original thumbnail. So if you are photoshopping yourself – make sure the original picture didn’t show you in a compromising situation!

We have seen instances in the past few years of people getting nailed because their fancy smancy camera embedded their GPS location into their MetaData. Even a not so techie person can view the MetaData and use it against you! There are plenty of sites for that, CameraSummary is one of such image data extractor websites.

Let’s teach our paranoid friends how to remove their MetaData from pictures and ease their minds.

We can start by downloading a small application called JPEG & PNG Stripper. It is a 75KB file that does exactly what it promises. There are not many options and you really cannot go wrong. It is a simple drag and drop operation that will clear up your skeletons in the closet.

No matter what you are trying to hide or protect, this awesome free application will scrub your images down lickity split. It also has command line options and you can do entire folders in one shot. You are actually saving a small amount of space as well because that MetaData does have to live somewhere!

Let’s take a look at how it works. You simply fire up the application called Stripper.exe. It does not need to be installed, just run it and drag a file to the window to be cleaned.

That’s it. It is as simple as that! We confirmed that the MetaData (or lack thereof) has been totally scrubbed ““ never to be seen again.

From the Author’s Website:

The image quality IS NOT AFFECTED. Includes command line support. Just specify a folder or file on the commandline (wildcards allowed)

And here are the options for my fellow command line geeks:

/GUI={0|1}
/IGNORE-READONLY={0|1}
/PRESERVE-DATETIME={0|1}
anything else on the command line is treated as a folder or filename (allows wildcards)

examples
stripper /gui=0 c:\path\test.jpg
stripper /gui=0 c:\path\test.* /ignore-readonly=1

Do you remove your MetaData from photos? Do you use MetaData for some other sort of snooping? Put us on in the comments!

• PDF requires an external application like Adobe Acrobat Reader (or any other free variants) while JPG does not.
• Browsers have the built-in capability to display images while handling PDF documents requires an external application or plug-in which may or may not be present.
• An external application comes with the handicap of loading times.  Plus the rendering of a PDF document happens only after the complete document is downloaded while images can be streamed in.
• Office applications also do a better job of handling images in comparison to PDF. To cite an example, a PowerPoint presentation with an embedded image goes faster than with a PDF document.

So, in some specific cases converting your PDF documents to an image format like JPG or JPEG could be the solution we are looking for.

1. Convert PDF to JPG (The Web Way)

No installations ““ just browse to these websites, upload your files and it’s done.

Zamzar

Perhaps, the most well known of the file conversion sites. Zamzar has been previously mentioned in Top Online File Converters. The process is simplicity personified:  Choose the file to convert then choose the format to convert to (e.g. JPG) then enter your email address to receive the converted file then convert.

The minuses with the free service are that the file size is limited to 100MB with just 5 simultaneous conversions. Also, you might feel a wee bit uneasy uploading sensitive data without encryption support.

YouConvertIt (Beta)

Another previous mention at MakeUseOf but just warrants a second look here because it too does a similar job of converting a PDF file to its JPG equivalent. You can upload 5 files at the same time.

As YouConvertIt is still in beta, expect some conversion attempt failures.

Neevia Document Converter

Neevia Technology has a web interface which facilitates the conversion of PDF documents to image files. Select the conversion settings and upload your file. The converted file can be rendered in the browser or can be downloaded via an email link. Two dropdowns further give you control over image quality and resolution. The only visible restriction is the 1MB file upload size limit.

If you are wary of uploading sensitive files over the net, you need to look beyond the online solutions to something much more local. Thankfully these three pieces of free software take up the task.

2. PDF to JPG Converters for The Desktop

PDF-Xchange Viewer (Windows)

PDF-Xchange Viewer is a light feature-rich PDF document reader. The free version of the software is a capable document handler with most of the standard features expected. Add comments and annotations, mark-up pages with texts and objects, type within the PDF document along with plug-ins for both IE and Firefox are also included.

But the feature which interests us is the ability of the software to export a file or a page to the supported image formats like JPEG, BMP, TIFF, PNG and more.

Open the PDF file in the viewer, click on File ““ Export to Image and the dialog opens up where you can set the pages to convert, the image type to convert to and the destination folder. More importantly, the “˜Export Mode’ setting allows you to designate the number of image files for the subject PDF file. The “˜Page Zoom’, “˜Resolution’ and “˜Page Background’ also allow added finishing touches.

OmniFormat (Windows)

“˜Omni’ means all and the OmniFormat document conversion utility lives up to the name. The free version permits active conversion and image handling of over 75 file formats including HTML, DOC, XLS, WPD, PDF, XML, JPG, GIF, TIF, PNG, PCX, PPT, PS, TXT, Photo CD, FAX and MPEG.

Using OmniFormat requires the installation of Pdf995 (it’s free too). Pdf995 is a fast and flexible PDF printer driver which makes it easy to publish PDF documents from any program. Pdf995 needs to be installed prior to the installation of OmniFormat. The free version of the software opens with a timed ad display.

This annoying part done with, the software itself is uncomplicated. It sets up a “˜Watch’ folder (or lets you set it up yourself). Any PDF file that has to be converted to JPG is copied into this folder. With the press of the “˜Single Pass’ button each single page of the PDF gets converted into the JPG format. With the “˜Start Monitoring’ button, PDF files can be repeatedly dropped into the watch folder for conversion.

Note of Caution: OmniFormat deletes the original PDF file in the watch folder after conversion”¦so be sure to copy the file you want to convert.

Virtual Image Printer Driver (Windows)

This open source application installs as an additional printer on the Printer’s applet and can convert any printable document to a BMP, PNG, JPG, TIFF or a PDF file. The Virtual Image Printer driver is based on the Microsoft universal printer driver core.

Simply, open the PDF file and print it by selecting the Image Printer Driver in the “˜Print’ dialog. The image file format and the compression range can be set in the Image Printer options box.

And When Everything Fails…

If you are away from a net connection and in want of the software’, the trusty “˜Print Screen’ button aided with any image handling application like MS Paint or IrfanView can do a stand-in job. I should know ““ I went this way before I came across the other six ways.

Do you know of any other methods?