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I have used HEIF for some time and the short version of what you want to know is this:

Encoding and decoding is processor intensive. On my MacBook Pro without hardware acceleration, photos are not displayed instantly as with jpeg, but could take seconds. This is noticeably if you have lots of photos to go through. Consider this if you want others to view your photos as well.

The quality is much higher than jpeg. Especially skies and surfaces with little color change are much less blocky even with 8-bit sources. And it support higher bits per color without needing a different format. And like jpeg you decide how much or little compression you require.

Avoid converting jpeg to HEIF. Unless you have stored the jpeg at near lossless quality, you will loose even more detail. And storing jpeg artifacts require more space.

Apple Photos does not convert your master files to HEIF automatically. Only if you transfer to a device without HEIF support will macOS or iOS convert HEIF to jpeg. Not the other way round. It should make sense as Photos neither did this before with TIFF, PNG, camera RAW or any other file format it supports.

A HEIF photo is basically a one frame HEVC video. Interestingly you can use ffmpeg or other video software to create a HEIF image, but you still need to put it in the right container by some other software. Also knowledge of HEVC compression settings are directly transferable to HEIF.
 
It's really too bad that Apple didn't put an option in to encode at HEIF at the same file size as JPG, using the extra efficiency for added quality rather than a smaller file size.
 
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HEIF is supported on all Macs capable of running macOS High Sierra, and many macOS applications work natively with HEIF, including Photos, Preview, and Quick Look. This means macOS users might consider converting their JPEG image files to HEIF for greater storage or network benefits.

Preview's File->Export... on High Sierra doesn't offer HEIF as an output option.
Lame.
 
Hi everyone. Want to ask you will all devices (mine is 5s) will use HEIC or iOS11 covers iphone 5s but not all their features are available
 
Apple chopped out iPhone 6s+ support for this, because support was present in early betas, then removed! Thanks Apple. :(
 
Using iCloud Library import will not auto-convert HEIC files to JPG.
You can also import to your photo library with a USB cable, then right click on Your Photo Library, and click open package contents. Then go to Masters folder and find your images as HEIC files.
If you drag them onto your desktop, they auto convert.
 
What we need to know is what to call them. I'm fine with leaving Jay-Pegg, Giff and Pee'n'Gee behind just like I did Em-Pee-Three, but then at least give the new ones catchy names. It can't possibly be "Hefck" and "Heyf". It also can't be "Age-Ee-Vee-See" and "Age-Ee-Eye-Eff". Well, it can, it's just that it would be depressing.

Why is it that these committees of autistic nerds who come up with formats and standards can never run anything by some marketing folks? Oh wait, they did – HEVC is the friendly name for H265. So they did run it by someone... unfortunately it wasn't someone with a clue.
 
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Hey guys, this is my online tool converts ios 11 photo in heic format to jpg with performing algorithm.

https://heictojpg.online
 
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