Will JPEG XL still be an editable camera RAW?+
Canon CR2 needs camera- and file-aware development to produce a rendered JPEG XL image. White balance, exposure, camera colour interpretation and, where applicable, demosaicing determine that rendering. The destination does not retain the original RAW development latitude. No development settings or camera support are implemented yet.
Will the background become transparent?+
The target can store an alpha channel, but converting an opaque image does not create transparent areas. Removing a background is a separate editing step.
Which compression mode will JPEG XL use?+
Lossless pixels, lossy pixels and reversible recompression of an eligible JPEG bitstream are separate modes. Exact JPEG reconstruction requires its reconstruction data, not just matching rendered pixels. JPEG XL permits different encoding modes or container representations. Its format name alone does not promise lossless output, a quality setting or a size reduction. The future engine must choose a supported codec and sample representation; inspect the target’s compression notes below.
Are bit depth and colour values guaranteed to match?+
Source and target sample models can differ in precision, channel layout, colour space and transfer function. Lossless compression only preserves the samples actually encoded; a precision reduction or colour conversion can already change them. The future engine defines numeric mapping, orientation and colour conversion; canonical depth facts are listed below where available.
Will metadata and colour profiles be retained?+
Canon CR2: Capture metadata → JPEG XL: Exif, XMP, ICC, JUMBF. Which fields are copied, rewritten or omitted will depend on the future engine; retention is not implemented yet.