JPEG 2000 (often associated with the .jp2 or .j2k extension) is an image compression standard developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) as the successor to the original JPEG standard (JFIF/JPEG). It utilizes wavelet-based compression technology, which offers significant advantages over the discrete cosine transform (DCT) used in traditional JPEG. Key features of JPEG 2000 include superior compression efficiency, especially at very low bitrates, and the ability to support both lossless and lossy compression within the same file structure. Furthermore, it supports high bit depths, multiple color spaces, and region-of-interest (ROI) coding, allowing specific parts of an image to be decoded at a higher resolution than others. This makes it highly suitable for professional applications such as medical imaging (DICOM often uses JPEG 2000), digital cinema, archival purposes, and high-quality photographic storage where superior scalability and quality retention are paramount. The format is defined by ISO/IEC 15444.