Jpeg2000 or webp images with CE IMAGE?

Question

Is it possible to use next-gen formats with CE Image, using Expression Engine 2.8?
What's the alternative?

Answer 1

CE-Image is pretty old now, and I'm also fairly sure it doesn't support outputing images in either webp or Jpeg2000 formats. Neither does any version of EE.

In theory CE-Image (or some equivalent) could output images in those formats, but due to limitations within EE it is pretty difficult to use either format as image sources within your site - EE's "File Manager" system does not currently recognise either format.

A better question to ask yourself though is why you would want to output images in either format in the first place: webp is not supported by macOS Safari yet, and only by the most recent version of iOS. Similarly Jpeg2000 has limited support (e.g. AFAIK it is still not supported on Firefox). So unless you are targetting a closed group of browsers that you know support the format, you'd need to provide an alternative image format in a more compatible format anyhow - so might as well just provide the compatible alternative...

HTH