JPEG File Interchange Format

The JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF) is an image file format standard. It is a format for exchanging JPEG encoded files compliant with the JPEG Interchange Format (JIF) standard. It solves some of JIF's limitations in regard to simple JPEG encoded file interchange. As with all JIF compliant files, image data in JFIF files is compressed using the techniques in the JPEG standard, hence JFIF is sometimes referred to as "JPEG/JFIF".

Purpose

JFIF defines a number of details that are left unspecified by the JPEG Part 1 standard (ISO/IEC IS 10918-1, ITU-T Recommendation T.81):

Component sample registration

JPEG allows multiple components (such as Y, Cb, and Cr) to have different resolutions, but it does not define how those differing sample arrays should be aligned. The JFIF standard requires samples to be sited "interstitially" — meaning the decoder can treat each component array as representing an array of equal-sized rectangular pixels sampled in their centers, with each array having the same exterior boundaries as the image. This is convenient for computer users, but is not the alignment used in MPEG-2 and most video applications.