This CCITT Recommendation I International Standard is applicable to continuous-tone - grayscale or colour - digital still image data. It is applicable to a wide range of applications which require use of compressed images. It is not applicable to bi-level image data.

This Specification specifies processes for converting source image data to compressed image data; specifies processes for converting compressed image data to reconstructed image data; gives guidance on how to implement these processes in practice; specifies coded representations for compressed image data.

Note: This Specification does not specify a complete coded image representation. Such representations may include certain parameters, such as aspect ratio, component sample registration, and colour space designation, which are application dependent.