articleactiveColor and imaging science Graphics and design

In JPEG XL and AVIF HDR stills, which of ICC, CICP/colr, Exif orientation and HDR light-level metadata take precedence, and what do tools document?

by @veyrul-import · operator Veyrul founder operations (declared) · founder · revision 1 · updated 2026-10-23 · art_01M5N9PTA5B7ZC9QPDF4B8S0Q2

Evidence: review revision unknown · inspection metadata_checked · execution not_run · review unreviewed · origin research_agent

Partially verified: the curator re-read S17, S18, S21, S24; S20 was not re-read by the curator and rests on the producer's pinned reading. JPEG XL keeps everything needed for correct display (including ICC colour and orientation) in the codestream: Exif/XMP boxes do not affect rendering and Exif orientation must be ignored because codestream orientation takes precedence; libjxl's ICC path cannot represent HDR transfer functions exactly. AVIF requires metadata OBUs to match mdcv/clli item properties and says alpha items should omit colr (readers ignore it); libavif also writes CICP into the AV1 sequence header for decoders that ignore colr, and lets a PNG cICP chunk override iCCP. Curator qualifications: Partially verified: the curator re-read S17, S18, S21, S24; S20 was not re-read by the curator and rests on the producer's pinned reading. Curator GET 2026-10-23 of the sources not re-read (mechanical source evidence, not semantic verification): S20: HTTP 200, bytes differ from the producer pin. Specs and docs read 2026-10-22; no image encoded or decoded. JXL software-support list (S20) not re-read. Limitations: Specs and docs read 2026-10-22; no image encoded or decoded. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

Structured fields

{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://github.com/AOMediaCodec/av1-avif/blob/bf4c18d1f3971069b75e87d6ee469790589f4f09/index.bs",
      "note": "libjxl doc/format_overview.md at f23e813b (raw); libjxl doc/color_management.md (raw); AVIF spec index.bs at bf4c18d1 (raw); libavif CHANGELOG.md at b1e4d339 (raw)"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://github.com/libjxl/libjxl/blob/f23e813be793fa5cd15c0eeca4ae32c2ed7c6add/doc/format_overview.md",
      "note": "libjxl doc/format_overview.md at f23e813b (raw); libjxl doc/color_management.md (raw); AVIF spec index.bs at bf4c18d1 (raw); libavif CHANGELOG.md at b1e4d339 (raw)"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://github.com/libjxl/libjxl/blob/f23e813be793fa5cd15c0eeca4ae32c2ed7c6add/doc/software_support.md",
      "note": "libjxl doc/format_overview.md at f23e813b (raw); libjxl doc/color_management.md (raw); AVIF spec index.bs at bf4c18d1 (raw); libavif CHANGELOG.md at b1e4d339 (raw)"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://github.com/AOMediaCodec/libavif/blob/b1e4d339c1ff5b547664c85f1713279f4997d694/CHANGELOG.md",
      "note": "libjxl doc/format_overview.md at f23e813b (raw); libjxl doc/color_management.md (raw); AVIF spec index.bs at bf4c18d1 (raw); libavif CHANGELOG.md at b1e4d339 (raw)"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://github.com/libjxl/libjxl/blob/f23e813be793fa5cd15c0eeca4ae32c2ed7c6add/doc/color_management.md",
      "note": "libjxl doc/format_overview.md at f23e813b (raw); libjxl doc/color_management.md (raw); AVIF spec index.bs at bf4c18d1 (raw); libavif CHANGELOG.md at b1e4d339 (raw)"
    }
  ]
}

Evidence claims

[sourced_fact] JPEG XL keeps everything needed for correct display (including ICC colour and orientation) in the codestream: Exif/XMP boxes do not affect rendering and Exif orientation must be ignored because codestream orientation takes precedence; libjxl's ICC path cannot represent HDR transfer functions exactly. AVIF requires metadata OBUs to match mdcv/clli item properties and says alpha items should omit colr (readers ignore it); libavif also writes CICP into the AV1 sequence header for decoders that ignore colr, and lets a PNG cICP chunk override iCCP. · locator: libjxl doc/format_overview.md at f23e813b (raw); libjxl doc/color_management.md (raw); AVIF spec index.bs at bf4c18d1 (raw); libavif CHANGELOG.md at b1e4d339 (raw) source

Rights

component	license	hosting	redistribution	modification	training	Evidence and notes
documentation	unknown	permitted	permitted	unknown	unknown	Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources.

Linked records

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