Upcoming changes to PNG image support on Twitter (aka Twitter killed high quality art)

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https://twittercommunity.com/t/upcoming-changes-to-png-image-support/118695
 
Twitter just announced that, starting February 11th, they’ll make changes to how they handle PNGs in order to improve image load latency and user data costs. (Yeah, right…)
 
What is the behavior going to be for uploaded PNG images?
PNG images are where there will be the most change and we want to detail the behavior clearly. There are actually numerous kinds of PNG formats and each needs to be considered. The change in behavior is going to move Twitter to converting more PNG images to be JPEG while offering a way to keep some PNG images as PNG as long as they meet criteria that has been set to achieve the image load performance needed at a global scale.
The simple breakdown is that lower color depth PNG images are encoded small enough to have better sizes than a JPEG counterpart, and we want to keep these PNG images. For high color depth PNG images, they are most often very large compared to a JPEG and delivering those images efficiently at a global scale is not feasible. For those high color PNG images, we will take extra steps to consider if we keep the PNG or, most likely, convert it to a JPEG. […]
What happens if I upload a PNG image that needs to be tested?
The test we apply to a high color depth PNG is that we will look at its file size and compare that to what it’s converted JPEG file size would be. If the PNG is sufficiently small enough based on a Twitter internal metric compared to the JPEG version, we will leave the PNG alone and use that. In the more common case, the PNG will be larger than our metric and will be converted to JPEG. […]
What’s the advantage of supporting PNG-8 image?
The advantage of Twitter supporting PNG-8 images (also called 8-bit PNGs), is that images with a reduced color palette of 256 colors will now have a way to upload lossless quality images to Twitter that will be preserved unmodified. They are small enough to be as performant as JPEG or better, so there is less compromise with image artifacts from JPEG compression or large file sizes that PNG-24 and PNG-32 images can reach. PNG-8 also support alpha, so if transparency is desired, using part of the color palette to have transparent and semi-transparent pixels is an option.
What happens to images with transparency when converted to JPEG?
Images converted to JPEG that had transparency will have a white background applied.
 
However, there’s hope! People are already trying to figure out how to cheat the system, for example by adding moiré pattern borders around their pictures that break jpeg compression and make the resulting file 3 times larger. Which, of course, means additional work for uploaders here, if they have to crop those borders away again…
 
TL;DR 1-4 bit and 8bit 256 color palette PNGs stay, EVERYTHING else becomes 85% quality JPEG. Goodbye, transparency.
 
 
UPDATE  
https://twitter.com/NolanOBrien/status/1080912457349029888  
The following amendment has been made:
  • If the image is a PNG that is 900 pixels or smaller in the longest dimension, that PNG will be left as-is.
 
Still not great for high resolution art, but at least small doodles are safe now.
Background Pony #C362
The justifications are begrudging reasonable but it’s still absolute bullshit. JPG is simply a terrible format that degrades over use no matter the quality. That, on top of Twitter’s atrocious UI design, makes the platform even trashier.
 
It was a good call on my part to not want to use that place as a primary art dump, much like with Tumblr after the _raw block. But alternatives for high-res art uploads are starting to dwindle.
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