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Image MIME Reference
Compressed-XCF

Compressed GIMP XCF Image

image/x-compressed-xcf
VS

Fuji Xerox EDMICS-RLC

image/vnd.fujixerox.edmics-rlc
EDMICS-RLC

A complete technical comparison of Compressed GIMP XCF Image and Fuji Xerox EDMICS-RLC — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature Compressed-XCF EDMICS-RLC
Transparency (Alpha) Yes ✕ No
Animation Support Yes ✕ No
Progressive Loading ✕ No ✕ No
HDR Support Yes ✕ No
EXIF Metadata Yes ✕ No
ICC Color Profile Yes ✕ No
Compressed GIMP XCF Image
image/x-compressed-xcf
Extension
.xcf.gz.xcf.bz2.xcfgz.xcfbz2
Container Gzip or Bzip2 Archive
Compression Gzip (Deflate) / Bzip2
Algorithm
DeflateBWT (Burrows-Wheeler)
Color Depth 8-bit (Per Channel), 16-bit (Integer/Floating Point), 32-bit (Integer/Floating Point)
Developed by The GIMP Team
Released 1995
Magic Bytes
1F 8B 08 (gzip) or 42 5A 68 (bzip2)
Full Compressed-XCF reference →
Fuji Xerox EDMICS-RLC
image/vnd.fujixerox.edmics-rlc
Extension
.rlc.edm
Container Fuji Xerox EDMICS Wrapper
Compression Run-Length Coding (RLC / RLE)
Algorithm
Run-Length Coding (RLC)
Color Depth 1-bit (Monochrome), 8-bit (Grayscale)
Developed by Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.
Released 1990s
Magic Bytes
Unknown (Proprietary Container)
Full EDMICS-RLC reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser Compressed-XCF EDMICS-RLC
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕ ✕
Compressed-XCF

Compressed-XCF Strengths

  • Drastically reduces the massive file sizes of standard XCF project files, saving significant disk space
  • Preserves 100% of the non-destructive editing data (layers, masks, paths, guides) from the GIMP workspace
  • Uses standard, universally supported compression algorithms (gzip/bzip2) meaning the archive can be rescued or extracted by standard OS tools if GIMP is unavailable
Limitations
  • Increases file load and save times due to the CPU overhead required to compress and decompress the massive pixel arrays
  • Impossible for automated tools to parse metadata or dimensions without first unarchiving the payload into memory
  • File extension combinations (.xcf.gz) can confuse basic MIME sniffers which stop reading at the .gz extension
EDMICS-RLC

EDMICS-RLC Strengths

  • Simple, computationally inexpensive Run-Length Coding enabled rapid compression and decompression on low-power legacy hardware
  • Deeply integrated into Fuji Xerox enterprise hardware for seamless, automated scan-to-archive workflows
Limitations
  • Completely proprietary and closed-source, making modern archival extraction and migration extremely difficult
  • No support in modern image processing libraries like ImageMagick, libvips, or standard viewers without bespoke decoding tools
  • RLC compression is far less efficient than modern algorithms like PNG (Deflate) for complex documents

When to choose which format

Compressed-XCF
Use Compressed-XCF when…
  • GIMP Multi-layer Project Archival
  • Saving disk space for complex raster edits
  • Open-source graphic design workflows
EDMICS-RLC
Use EDMICS-RLC when…
  • Fuji Xerox EDMICS Enterprise Systems
  • Archival of Scanned Engineering Documents
  • Legacy Corporate Scanning Pipelines

More comparisons

Compressed-XCF vs ACES → EDMICS-RLC vs ACES → Compressed-XCF vs APNG → EDMICS-RLC vs APNG → Compressed-XCF vs AVCI → EDMICS-RLC vs AVCI → Compressed-XCF vs AVCS → EDMICS-RLC vs AVCS → Compressed-XCF vs AVIF → EDMICS-RLC vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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