Microsoft Announces HD-Photo
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.