qoi | The “ Quite OK Image Format ” for fast , lossless image | Computer Vision library

If you think about the way the math works, you want this flipped order, because it means all the results from each of the "logical" multiplications cluster in the same byte. The highest byte in the first value multiplied by the lowest byte in the second produces a result in the highest byte. The lowest byte in the first value's product with the highest byte in the second value produces a result in the same highest byte, and the same goes for the intermediate bytes.

Yes, the 0x78... and 0x03... are also multiplied by each other, but they overflow way past the top of the value and are lost. Having the order "backwards" means the result of the multiplications we care about all ends up summed in the uppermost byte (the total shift of the results we want is always 56 bits, because the 56th bit offset value is multiplied by the 0th, the 40th by the 16th, the 16th by the 40th, and the 0th by the 56th), with the rest of the multiplications we don't want having their results either overflow (and being lost) or appearing in lower bytes (which we ignore). If you flipped the bytes in the second value, the 0x78 * 0x0B (alpha value & multiplier) component would be lost to overflow, while the 0x12 * 0x03 (red value & multiplier) component wouldn't reach the target byte (every component we cared about would end up somewhat that wasn't the uppermost byte).

For a possibly more intuitive example, imagine doing the same work, but where all the bytes of one input except a single component are zero. If you multiply: