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Image MIME Reference
DjVu

DjVu Document

image/vnd.djvu
VS

PaintShop Pro Image

image/x-paintshoppro
PaintShop-Pro-PSP

A complete technical comparison of DjVu Document and PaintShop Pro Image — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature DjVu PaintShop-Pro-PSP
Transparency (Alpha) Yes Yes
Animation Support ✕ No ✕ No
Progressive Loading Yes ✕ No
HDR Support ✕ No Yes
EXIF Metadata ✕ No Yes
ICC Color Profile ✕ No Yes
DjVu Document
image/vnd.djvu
Extension
.djvu.djv
Container Interchange File Format (IFF)
Compression JB2 (Bi-tonal Text) / IW44 (Wavelet Background) / BZZ (General Data/Text)
Algorithm
JB2IW44BZZ
Color Depth 1-bit (Foreground Text), 24-bit (Background)
Developed by AT&T Labs (Yann LeCun, Léon Bottou, Patrick Haffner, Paul G. Howard)
Released 1996
Magic Bytes
41 54 26 54 46 4F 52 4D
Full DjVu reference →
PaintShop Pro Image
image/x-paintshoppro
Extension
.psp.pspimage.tub.pat
Container PSP Chunk-based Format
Compression Uncompressed / RLE (Run-Length Encoding) / LZ77
Algorithm
RLELZ77
Color Depth 8-bit (Indexed), 16-bit (Grayscale), 24-bit (RGB), 32-bit (RGBA), 48-bit (High Color)
Developed by Jasc Software / Corel Corporation (Alludo)
Released 1990
Magic Bytes
7E 42 4B 00
Full PaintShop-Pro-PSP reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser DjVu PaintShop-Pro-PSP
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕ ✕
DjVu

DjVu Strengths

  • Unmatched compression ratios for high-resolution scanned documents (often 5 to 10 times smaller than equivalent JPEG/TIFF-based PDFs)
  • Separates text layers cleanly from backgrounds, allowing for highly legible text even at low file sizes
  • Embedded OCR (Optical Character Recognition) text layers allow for fast searching
Limitations
  • Lacks native support in modern operating systems and web browsers, requiring third-party software
  • Largely superseded by PDF/A and modern PDF compression standards in standard corporate workflows
  • Not suitable for vector graphics or born-digital documents (like Word exports), where standard PDF is far superior
PaintShop-Pro-PSP

PaintShop-Pro-PSP Strengths

  • Provides robust, non-destructive editing capabilities with full support for vector layers, adjustment layers, and layer blend modes
  • Historically offered a highly capable and affordable alternative to Adobe Photoshop's PSD format for Windows users
  • Features proprietary support for 'Picture Tubes' (.tub), a unique brush technology that paints sequential or random raster objects along a path
Limitations
  • Deeply proprietary format tied exclusively to the Corel/Alludo ecosystem
  • Third-party software support (like GIMP or ImageMagick) is often limited to parsing older .psp files, frequently failing to render complex layers in modern .pspimage files
  • No support in modern web browsers; must be exported to a flattened web format (JPEG/PNG) for online viewing

When to choose which format

DjVu
Use DjVu when…
  • Scanned Books and Manuals
  • Digital Libraries (e.g., Internet Archive)
  • Historical Document Archiving
PaintShop-Pro-PSP
Use PaintShop-Pro-PSP when…
  • PaintShop Pro Multi-layer Project Archival
  • Digital Art and Photo Retouching
  • Picture Tubes (.tub) and Custom Patterns (.pat)

More comparisons

DjVu vs ACES → PaintShop-Pro-PSP vs ACES → DjVu vs APNG → PaintShop-Pro-PSP vs APNG → DjVu vs AVCI → PaintShop-Pro-PSP vs AVCI → DjVu vs AVCS → PaintShop-Pro-PSP vs AVCS → DjVu vs AVIF → PaintShop-Pro-PSP vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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