hoakley October 19, 2017 Macs, Technology

Can macOS 10.13 High Sierra write HEIF/HEIC image files?

Apple has told us how exciting and efficient the new HEIF image compression is in iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra. So today I went to my High Sierra system, and tried to compress one of my 16 MB Camera RAW files to the new format, also known as HEIC.

Imagine my surprise when I was unable to find any app which was prepared to save an imported RAW file in HEIF/HEIC. Photos and Preview seem able to read them, but not write to them, except in Photo’s case as unchanged exports (it can’t export changed HEIF/HEIC, though). Third party apps like Affinity Photo, Pixelmator, and GraphicConverter won’t play either – with the latter informing me quite simply that writing HEIF/HEIC files is currently not possible in 10.13.

Thanks to @superpixel, who confirms that other apps such as Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 can’t write HEIF/HEIC either.

So is Apple going to eventually get round to providing write support for this wonderful new format, or is it going to be the first read-only image format supported on macOS? And how come iOS 11 cameras can write HEIF/HEIC images, but Macs aren’t important enough to Apple to merit such support?

I don’t recall Apple announcing this at WWDC back in June. Do you?

22Comments

Add yours

1

Biff on October 20, 2017 at 1:43 am

With so many perplexing software and hardware inconsistencies and other issues over the last couple of years, I am getting a persistent feeling that no one is really in charge at Apple any more.

LikeLike
2

Alex on October 20, 2017 at 9:26 am

I created a simple script based on the following website to convert image files to HEIF format: http://jpgtoheif.com

LikeLike
- 3
  
  hoakley on October 20, 2017 at 9:49 am
  
  Thank you.
  Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that just upload the image to that website, let’s it convert the file, then download the converted image? It doesn’t use macOS at all?
  Howard.
  
  LikeLike
  - 4
    
    Alex on October 20, 2017 at 10:08 am
    
    No, what happens is that you run ffmpeg to generate a bitstream file and then writerapp to create the proper metadata HEIF file. I created a bash workflow and I can select a file in the Finder and then use the services menu to convert the file. You need to have ffmpeg and writerapp, but how to build them is on the website. I don’t know how to properly format comments here, so here is the Dropbox link to the scripts: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g4hi1c074a7bdht/AABzLkJUk4rjSn3pJsVrnmbea?dl=0
    
    LikeLike
    - 5
      
      hoakley on October 20, 2017 at 10:11 am
      
      So which bits of the process are handled by macOS?
      Howard
      
      LikeLike
    - 6
      
      alex on October 20, 2017 at 10:15 am
      
      Nothing is handled by MacOS. ffmpeg and writeapp create the HEIF files from the JPEG files. I just created a bash workflow with automator to make it easier to convert the files from the Finder. Also, I don’t generate the thumbnails in my script like they do on the website since MacOS generates thumbnails itself when the files appear.
      
      LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 7
      
      hoakley on October 20, 2017 at 10:36 am
      
      Thank you – you have been very helpful. So what I have written above with respect to High Sierra and regular apps is correct, and I presume that you can use this ingenious workflow to convert from JPEG to HEIF on Sierra, and possibly El Capitan too?
      I’m not really sure why anyone, at present, would want to convert an image to HEIF (or, for that matter, a movie to HEVC, as that is as poorly supported by High Sierra and Apple’s apps). Is there a good reason for doing so?
      Howard.
      
      LikeLike
    - 8
      
      Alex on October 20, 2017 at 4:41 pm
      
      Actually I only created the HEIF conversion scripts because of your article to see if it would be of any use. Other than saving disk space, I have no other use for them right now. As far as HVEC, there too I have used it to save disk space, although it makes streaming large movies or TV shows to my Apple TV much nicer. Due to their smaller size, I can stream high resolution content remotely with lower bandwidth utilization.
      
      LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 9
      
      hoakley on October 20, 2017 at 10:38 am
      
      Would you like me to make these available – with full credit to you, of course – from an article in this blog? That would save others from having to use that Dropbox link.
      Howard.
      
      LikeLike
    - 10
      
      Alex on October 20, 2017 at 4:32 pm
      
      Sure you can use them any way you want
      
      LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 11
      
      Alex on October 20, 2017 at 8:50 pm
      
      Just wanted to point out that I updated the scripts. Main changes were to allow parallel/batch conversions (when multiple files selected) with Workflow Services script. Also used “crf 9” vs “crf 12” which generates larger files of about ½ the size of the original. I also placed writerapp & ffmpeg executables there.
      
      LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 12
      
      hoakley on October 20, 2017 at 8:58 pm
      
      Thank you: I have been working on other articles and haven’t got around to this yet, which is just as well!
      I’ll post them in a short article here later tonight, I hope.
      Howard.
      
      LikeLike
    - 13
      
      hoakley on October 20, 2017 at 9:21 pm
      
      Just posted, thank you again.
      Howard.
      
      LikeLike
14

iawhciwc on October 20, 2017 at 10:08 am

I have to agree with Biff. It seems Apple does everything half-assed these days but still wants premium prices for their hardware which in some cases are half-assed. I have an iMac like that. If they put as much effort into dev’ing software and producing hardware that they do into putting on their annual media circus they might be able to produce a decent product. Since S.J. passed on to the great hardware heaven Apple has slowly be imploding into it’s self.

LikeLike
15

KKT on October 26, 2017 at 6:55 pm

Yes, you’re correct. Apple confirmed exporting is NOT supported, but not why it’s not.

I’m guessing one of two things happened. Licensing HEVC for export became an issue, or they’re waiting for the next version of the standard, which they mentioned in a WWDC presentation was supposed to be out soon.

It’s very strange, cause if you’re using the development tools, you have access to everything. Thought for sure they’d update the sips command line tools and Preview at a minimum.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- 16
  
  hoakley on October 26, 2017 at 6:58 pm
  
  Thank you. It is bizarre that High Sierra can transcode and write to HEVC, but not to HEIF/HEIC, particularly when ffmpeg can.
  Howard.
  
  LikeLike
  - 17
    
    KKT on October 26, 2017 at 7:05 pm
    
    Also intriguing: Adobe added HEIF import but not export support to last week’s Photoshop & Lightroom updates: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/whats-new.html
    
    LikeLike
    - 18
      
      hoakley on October 26, 2017 at 7:08 pm
      
      Is that so puzzling? High Sierra does decode HEIF quite happily, so that should have been easy to implement, at least on High Sierra. But apart from making it slightly easier to work with iOS 11 images, there seems little point.
      Howard.
      
      LikeLike
19

Thorsten Lemke on January 2, 2018 at 3:18 pm

The script/code at http://jpgtoheif.com does not embed the metadata. So, you get HEIC files without Exif and ICC. I will try to implement an export with metadata in an upcoming GraphicConverter version.

LikeLiked by 1 person
- 20
  
  hoakley on January 2, 2018 at 4:39 pm
  
  Thank you for taking the trouble to visit, and even more for the hope that we might one day be able to write HEIF/HEIC images properly.
  The format looks promising, but it is so hard to actually use it, which seems a great shame.
  I eagerly look forward to the wonderful GraphicConverter gaining support.
  Howard.
  
  LikeLike
  - 21
    
    Thorsten Lemke on January 9, 2018 at 7:56 am
    
    I added now the export with some external helper tools:
    http://www.lemkesoft.org/beta.html
    
    XMP and Exif data is saved, too.
    Only ICC is currently missing – because that is still missing in the Nokia reference implementation.
    
    Thorsten
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 22
      
      hoakley on January 9, 2018 at 8:28 am
      
      Thank you, Thorsten: that sounds brilliant!
      I look forward to trying it out.
      Howard.
      
      LikeLike

·Comments are closed.

Share this:

Like this:

Related