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JPEG, or Joint Photographic Experts Group, is a widely-used image compression standard that employs a mathematical framework to reduce file sizes while maintaining acceptable image quality. At its core, JPEG uses Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) to convert spatial image data into frequency components, effectively separating the image into various frequency bands. Low-frequency components, which contain the overall structure and major features of the image, are quantized more coarsely (i.e., with larger reduction), while high-frequency components, representing fine details and edges, are quantized more precisely to preserve detail. This frequency domain representation is then encoded using Huffman coding, a lossy compression technique that assigns shorter codes to more frequent values. By prioritizing the retention of low-frequency information and discarding high-frequency details that are less perceptible to the human eye, JPEG achieves significant compression ratios. However, this process introduces artifacts such as blocking and blurring, especially at higher compression levels, highlighting the trade-off between file size reduction and image fidelity.
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