Comments on: Microsoft releases final version of HD Photo plug-in for Photoshop

Microsoft's attempt to advance its image file format takes a step forward with Photoshop support. Next up: getting people to actually use it.

[Renegade Knight]

It Does Sound Promising

Lossless compression. Better Color Range. If you can annotate it, plug GPS Coordinates into it, and perhaps add a sound byte, it would have all the bases covered to be a working standard.

For a standard to catch on, it has to solve problems.

[`WarpKat]

It definately opens new doors...

...for vulnerability exploitation and annoyance if you allow all of that crap into it.

[frankwick]

This is a good thing

High qualtity photos at jpeg sizes... Good technology, but not useful yet. For it to become useful, the cameras need to support it and the labs need to be able to read it. Then you will have the complete supply chain from image capture to processing to printing.

[Shankland]

Useful even without all links in the chain

Even in limited areas, I suspect JPEG XR is useful, though certainly not nearly to the extent as if it's ubiquitous. For example, I shoot raw images on my camera right now because I want to keep the data that JPEG throws away. But when I send images to friends, I convert to JPEG, of course. For many people, HD Photo/JPEG XR could be a useful alternative that has some of the higher quality of raw without the hassle of having to process every picture out of the camera. Another example: HD Photo could be useful on a computer for printing, since Windows Vista supports it.

But yes, it would be vastly more useful once one can assume its support is universal.

[t8]

Beware

Beware of the small print and practices of Microsoft.

The devil is always in the details.

Ask yourself why they are doing this?
It is never a good answer when it comes to Redmond.

[Hernys]

Why?

Because creating a standard format that helps the usefullness of PCs is in their benefit. Because by creating the format they can make the design decisions that they consider important for the PC market. Because by creating the format they can be the first ones to implement it, and have a V3 implementation by the time others have a V1.
Is any of that bad?

[Marty Feldman]

Do you really trust this man?

steve Ballmer ....
http://****************.blogspot.com

[Microsoft_Facts]

Dangerous format

Given Microsoft's 100% track record in these area's;

It is bloated, any application or device supporting this format will run at 1/4 speed with twice the horsepower as compared to any non-MS format.

This file format will spread viruses and worms.

And of course, nothing comes from Microsoft that isn't overall more harmful to society than good.

[M.Kogaku]

Forced "upgrade" time?

Gee, I guess there must be too many people still using Win2K -- for my money, the best OS they've produced to date (and I paid enough of my money to buy it from them!)

It's stable, it's fast, it is less of a resource hog, it doesn't threaten to wipe me out if I install some new memory or a new video card -- and, golly, it won't support this new "standard".

If they can get enough websites to use it, and enough digital cameras to use it, then people will suddenly find their OS unusable for anything requiring graphics.

How droll.

[steve4lee]

comparison picture

The "comparison" picture of the two standards is itself a single
JPEG. So the look on the right is possible in JPEG, because, well,
there it is.

There is not a single color space for all JPEGs, but rather they
can embed different color space settings, as anybody knows
who's ever saved a JPEG from Photoshop and read all the
parameters you can set from the Save windows.

Certainly, sRGB, the usual color space for JPEGs on the web, has
a smaller gamut than a lot of others. If that's the problem, then
just have browsers to adopt a different default standard. As I
recall, Microsoft was one of the champions of using sRGB as the
browser default. But a wide gamut per se is not a cure-all. It
depends upon how the picture is displayed. If the gamut is a lot
bigger than the medium can handle, then you are just wasting a
lot of your color information where it can't be seen and losing
information where it could be.

Anyhow, my point is that the comparison picture is a kind of
fraud. If JPEG can't produce the quality on the right, how did
they get it into a JPEG to show on the web?

[Hernys]

Good point but...

THe real point is that given JPEGs limitations heavy editing and composing of images will teng to yield pictures like the one on the left, even if with heavy work you can get them to look right.
My main concern is with displays. As monitors have a dynamic range that's closer to JPEGs capabilities than to scRGB range, most users won't see a big difference for normal material (like their own pictures).

[Shankland]

both are JPEGs, but

They were edited back from an originally overexposed image. The original JPEG lacked the data to bring back the overexposed highlights, but the HD Photo had more latitude. The resulting image is more palatable. I'll clarify the caption better--thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[Mproject]

Microsoft is doomed

This is the end of Microsoft.

[Hernys]

I think

I've heard this before. In the early nineties. And every year since.
Don't you have anything better to do?