.heic vs .heics images

  1. Create a Pages document with two empty pages
  2. Export this document as PDF
  3. Open this PDF with Preview and export it as HEIC

Note that resulting file is simply .heic, not .heics, despite it contains multiple images. Why is that?

I had never heard of a .heics file extension before. The internet says it is for an “image sequence” which sounds more involved than just multiple images in a file.

I stay away from Apple’s proprietary image formats. They are becoming more widely supported but I still prefer JPEG (.jpg) for best compatibility.

There is an article by Adobe in which it is said that “each HEIC file uses the .heic or .heics extension, depending on the number of images inside.” I don’t know what is the correct way to interpret these words.

Is it just simply singular vs plural? .heic is 1 image, .heics is 2 or more? Seems silly to do that, but maybe that’s it.

BTW, it is not a proprietary Apple file format, it is an ISO standard:

1 Like

That is what it means:

Files with extensions that end with an ‘s’ indicate an image sequence, somewhat similar to animated GIF files.

1 Like

Just worth noting that Apple is not using proprietary formats for images or videos. They are open standard formats from ISO - Apple is just an early adopter.

I understand that. And adoption by others has been coming. And with Apple pushing it, HEIC may become ubiquitous … some day. My point is that JPEG and TIFF are still the ones to beat once one has to deal with a computer, device, printer, website, or service bureau that is outside the Apple ecosystem. :slightly_smiling_face:

Oh for sure - and macOS and iOS generally do a great job of on demand conversion for pretty much any purpose. I havent run into a compatibility issue in forever because any time you share an image even if you shot in HEIC or HEIF it’s a JPG/whatever the videos are that’s received on the other end. I upload images to archaic forums, squarespace, reddit, discord, instagram, the service I had print my business cards and gods know what else seamlessly while shooting exclusively in HEIF for years. When you export from Photos on macOS it defaults to a .jpg even if your original is HEIF (to be fair it does the same if the original is ProRAW, too).

I think the only time you’re likely to have an issue these days is if you’re using a Mac or iOS device that is too old to have support.

The only time I had to worry about it in recent memory was installing the Microsoft HEIF patch on Windows 11 for iCloud Photos to be accessible after syncing. Even that’s a Microsoft Store download at this point (though I really can’t imagine why they haven’t made it a standard thing through a Windows update yet).