En-hui Yang and Longji Wang have published a new JPEG compression algorithm fully compatible with existing JPEG decoders.
What makes this algorithm interesting is a reduction of 30% in the JPEG file size with no apparent loss in visual quality and the algorithm is quick (less than a second on a Pentium PC for typical images).
It is also claimed that this algorithm achives the maximum compression that JPEG encoders fully compatible with existing JPEG decoders can achieve.
This is a dream come true for designers who loves image quality, but must also have an eye for the file size.
Given that, are there any plans of adding this functionality to photoshop?
We have been following this and similar research for quite some time. So far most of them are too slow to be useful, but we're still pursuing the techniques.
The second paper says that it takes 0.2 seconds for typical color images.
I would say that it is fast.
Let's just say that there is frequently a large difference between what gets published in academic papers and actual practice.