Once known as Windows Media Photo, Microsoft just released a new photo format called HD-Photo. Bill Crow has a good writeup on the benefits of the new format. Basically it allows for high-fidelity photo editing and storage. While those of us in the normal world do all of our photography in JPEG format, professionals do not. They use TIFF or a format called RAW (which is propreitary to each camera). These formats are less aggressive in their compression and allow for greater color detail. HD-Photo is similar but attempts to be a more interoperable standard. It also supports better compression than the standards I mention. This is a technology to watch. JPEG has some serious deficiencies which something like HD-Photo can alleviate. Two questions come to my mind:
- Will camera makers and photo editing suites adopts HD-Photo?
- Will consumers care? Is JPEG good enough for them?
Only time will tell if HD-Photo takes off or not. If it does, I think everyone will benefit.
I haven't found any detailed analysis of HD Photo vs. Adobe's DNG, for example. Not to mention all the name-brand cameras use their own RAW file format.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, you're wondering about The Ephemeral Nature of Computers.
I worry about the ephemeral nature of my file formats! Er, excuse me, I should have said Nikon/Microsoft/Adobe/Canon's file formats.
Good point. We know that JPEG will probably be decodable in 20 years. The rest, perhaps not. If HD-Photo gains traction then it will but if it remains an obscure format, it may well fade. The RAW formats, being proprietary, are probably doomed from a historical perspective.
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