A low-resolution rendition is transmitted and displayed rapidly, and then followed by as much resolution enhancement as desired. Each stage of resolution enhancement builds on the image already available. 2 to 30 times better for images with grayscale rendered by half-toning or dithering. JBIG is sensitive to noise, the compression ratio decreases when the amount of noise in your image increases. JBIG produces better results than lossless JPEG on images with two to five bits per pixel and produce identical results on image with data six to eight pixels.
Cost savings come from several areas.
JBIG's smaller files lead to fewer optical disks for storage, less network bandwidth, and faster transfer of files. Internet applications or even any network related applications. Storing A0 sized engineering documents. Multiple resolution layers can be stored so that the user can browse through using a low resolution preview and then display the image at the desired resolution.