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DICOM supports image compression by defining transfer syntaxes which are used for different lossless (bit preserving) and lossy compression schemes. With lossless compression, all original pixel data is recovered and displayed after the image is uncompressed. It means that OnePacs Workstation can display images encoded using all standard DICOM compression techniques.  In cases where the compression is lossless, there is no loss in pixel data of the image and the uncompressed image of quality.  Reversible, or lossless, compression is reversible, meaning that when the image is uncompressed for display, the resulting imaging data is bit-for-bit exact replicas of the same as the original image. Unlike lossless compression, Lossy compression does not retain the original pixel data and eliminates some unnecessary and redundant pixel data to reduce the size of the image, so there might be some loss in pixel data after the image is uncompressed.

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(prior to compression). Images compressed with Diagnostically acceptable irreversible compression (DAIC) are not bit-for-bit identical in the sense of computer data storage, but do not have any human-perceivable visual differences in display characteristics compared to images compressed with reversible/lossless algorithms. The American College of Radiology and other similar bodies in other jurisdictions have issued guidelines indicating that DAIC may be used. It is the responsibility of radiologists using such images to ensure the images are diagnostically acceptable.