Microsoft announced some significant progress Tuesday in getting its HD Photo technology standardized as JPEG XR, a significant development for photographers like me who don't like the idea that their camera is discarding data when it converts image sensor information into a JPEG.
But the arrival of a higher-quality alternative to conventional JPEG could mean a bit of a turf war between Microsoft and Adobe Systems, which is trying to popularize a file format called Digital Negative (DNG). DNG is, in part, an attempt to bring some order to the chaos of proprietary "raw" image formats that higher-end cameras produce, giving photographers access to sensor data that hasn't been boiled down into a JPEG.
(Credit:
Adobe)
Microsoft positions JPEG XR chiefly as a higher-end replacement for JPEG, but in talking to Robert Rossi, Microsoft's principal program manager for emerging image and video technology, his opinions about JPEG XR's relation to raw and DNG jumped out at me.
Adobe's vision for DNG is that increasingly sophisticated software will take the hassle out of processing raw images, enabling DNG technology to spread more broadly. But Microsoft seems to believe JPEG XR will handle the needs of enthusiasts demanding more quality.
With JPEG XR, "You're giving people much of the capability of raw in a convenient file format. On the ultra-high-end there might be still a preference to use raw," Rossi said.
DNG has "a far more limited market or focus," Rossi added. "We are kind of approaching the raw/DNG functionality, but we would go much lower into the prosumer and consumer market, all the way down to cell phones."
Ed Lee, an analyst with InfoTrends, sees some competition between DNG and JPEG XR. "I think some of it comes around to who does the better job marketing the format and getting it adopted," he said.
Personally, I'd welcome a little competition among powerful companies trying to improve image quality, as long as the world isn't saddled with two competing standards that do the same thing. But although there's definitely some overlap, I suspect the two formats will remain more in separate domains--and not just because Adobe spoke positively about JPEG XR earlier this year, indicating it doesn't feel too threatened by JPEG XR.
If it fills Microsoft's expectations, JPEG XR will be used in a much larger, mainstream photography market. DNG and raw, in comparison, appeal chiefly to professionals and advanced amateurs today, and no matter how easy processing those images may become once downloaded from a camera, any amount of processing will rule out a large population.
JPEG XR does address one advantage of raw and DNG, the ability to preserve more of the original data from image sensors. JPEG retains 8 bits of data for the blue, red and green in each pixel, but cameras typically record 12 bits, with Canon's new 1D Mark III recording 14 bits and higher-end models 16 bits.
JPEG XR, though, has immense bit depth--with 16 or 32 bits of data recorded for each pixel's color, that means somewhere between 65,536 and 4,294,967,296 shades of tonal variation between black and white. Thus the "XR," or extended range, moniker. Regular 8-bit JPEG has 256 shades, which is plenty if they happen to be distributed perfectly, but not enough if you want to use photo-editing software to brighten up a face that's lost in shadow.
However, DNG and raw formats offer something JPEG XR can't: unprocessed data. Creating a JPEG XR image means the camera is making its best guess about color balance--compensating for the bluish hue of fluorescent lights or the orange cast of incandescent, for example--as well as reducing noise and sharpening edges. For those who want that level of control, stick with raw or DNG.
Camera makers can be pretty cagey about their future plans--maybe they don't want to undermine sales of products with such a fleeting shelf life--so it can be frustrating to try to find out who's interested in meeting the demand for high-end compact cameras that cater to the SLR (single-lens reflex) crowd.
Ricoh Caplio GX100
(Credit: Ricoh)One company that's trying its best to fill that niche is Ricoh, a Japanese manufacturer in the shadow of giants such as Canon and Nikon. But Ricoh has been trying to lure high-end compact camera buyers with its GX100, a 10-megapixel compact camera that features a flash hot shoe, raw image support and other features geared for enthusiasts.
Ricoh also is willing to offer a little more insight into its hopes for the high-end compact market.
The company envisions "a time where there will be a true convergence of digital SLR and point-and-shoot technologies, resulting in a new breed of hybrid imaging devices that are optimal for both the consumer and prosumer markets," said Jeff Lengyel, manager of Ricoh America's camera division.
Sounds like a tall order. But I've heard from a lot of people who want something both good and small.
I didn't fully appreciate how much Adobe Photoshop Lightroom changed how I deal with digital photos until I tried the latest version of the regular Photoshop software, CS3.
I shoot raw images almost all the time, and I wanted to try out the new features of Adobe Camera Raw 4.1 that's available only to Photoshop CS3 users. I like its new "clarity" adjustment, and appreciate more control over sharpening, but trying those tools out felt like a trip back to the stone age.
Adobe Lightroom
(Credit: Adobe)Lightroom isn't perfect, and it doesn't replace regular Photoshop. But it shows the future of photo editing, and in my case, Lightroom unexpectedly swooped in to take over almost all of my photo-related tasks.
Why shoot raw?
Here's a little background on raw images for those of you who aren't converts yet. They're taken directly from higher-end camera image sensors with no in-camera processing. That lets the photographer use all the bit depth of the original data for finer tonal gradations; better correct exposure problems; sidestep sometimes overaggressive or misguided noise reduction; and adjust white balance for incandescent light, shade or bright sunlight.
So raw images are great, right? Overall, yes, in my opinion, but there are serious drawbacks. The biggest is that you have to hand-adjust each raw image to make them into JPEGs to send to your pals, and that takes a lot of time. And I already spend too much of my day staring at a screen.
This is where Lightroom steps in. Its "develop" module has relatively quick and convenient tools for fast conversion of your raw images. It's based on the same engine used in Photoshop's Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) converter, so many of the controls are familiar, but Lightroom presents them much more ably in a single strip to the right of the photo you're editing. Infrequently used options can be collapsed to stay out of the way.
In my case, probably the single biggest improvement over ACR is that a single click on the image will zoom it to 100 percent, and another click will zoom it back. When editing photos, I do this a lot. The second biggest improvement is the keyboard shortcuts that rapidly move me through Lightroom's options.
Much more than an editor
I wanted Lightroom for converting my raw images, but I ended up using it for much more. I import my photos into Lightroom's library, compare similar shots and delete the duds, tag the rest with appropriate metadata, then label the ones I want to export for my JPEG archive.
I sift through my collections using metadata--not just my own tags, but also EXIF data such as the lens I used. When I upload images to Web sites such as Flickr, the captions and tags and titles I added in Lightroom show up automatically. I give impromptu slideshows to friends and family. On the infrequent occasions when I'm printing rather than e-mailing photos, I use Lightroom. The main feature I don't touch is Lightroom's ability to create HTML or Flash photo galleries that can be uploaded to a Web site.
Lightroom has made raw image editing simple and fast enough that I can envision a future in which it will become much more mainstream. Likely that will be because software will be able to automatically convert raw images better than cameras can. Based on that forecast, I've begun recommending to friends that they shoot raw as well as JPEG for photos they care about. Even if all they use today are the JPEGs, the higher-quality raw images will likely will be nearly as convenient to handle in the future.
OK, enough with the warm and fuzzies. Having used Lightroom for a few months now, my expectations have been reset. Here's my gripe list:
Gripe list
• It's somewhat slow. I don't have the latest computer, and processing raw files is a complicated chore, so I'm willing to cut Adobe some slack, but I find myself waiting a lot. The worst is waiting for the 100 percent zoom view images to load.
• A workaround for the 100 percent view problem is to have Lightroom build 1:1 previews in advance. That takes awhile, so I usually start it, go away, then come back later. It would be nice if Lightroom had an option to create the 1:1 previews upon import. And even when 1:1 previews have been generated, it still often takes a long time to display them--15 seconds for me when I timed it a few days ago. Perhaps this is a memory-caching issue. Perhaps I need a PC with dual quad-core processors and 8GB of memory. Perhaps I need a big pay raise.
• The noise-reduction and sharpening tools are feeble compared with my preferred tools, Photoshop's smart sharpen and reduce noise filters. In fact, those two filters are the main reason I still use Photoshop. Adobe is goosing at least the sharpening options with Lightroom 1.1, but I doubt either tool will match Photoshop, perhaps because of the difficulties of nondestructive editing.
• I'd like keyboard shortcuts to move to different development sliders, such as exposure, vibrance and sharpening.
• Clicking the "auto" button to have Lightroom make its best guess about correct exposure and tonality often produces a glaringly overexposed skin tones. This seems to be the case mostly with pictures I've taken indoors; auto tone works pretty well for outdoor shots.
• Why is it when I hit tab to move from one noise-reduction field to the next, Lightroom moves me to the exposure adjustment field?
• If I've labeled an image with a color, then change it back to neutral, it improperly appears at the top of the heap when I filter by color.
• It chokes with too many images. When I load up a few hundred shots from a weekend trip, I often get out of memory errors, even with a system with 3GB of RAM. These are usually fixed by quitting and restarting, but it's still a drag, and I imagine they'd be even more annoying for a pro who's shooting thousands of frames. I also fear my library of images is too big. But if I split it up, say, into increments of three months, then the nifty ability to filter by metadata is impaired.
• Lightroom leaves original images intact, which is good, storing modifications in a separate database. But Photoshop's ACR can't read that database. An alternative is to store the edits in extra XMP sidecar files that reside in the same folder as the original, but I worry about problems keeping the sidecars and the originals cheek by jowl. Perhaps I should move my files to DNG (Adobe's Digital Negative) format, which records modifications in the file itself. Happily, Lightroom can convert your raw files into DNG upon import.
• I'm on the fence about hierarchical metadata. At first blush, having subtags for "pelicans" and "warblers" as children of the "birds" tag makes sense; filtering on "birds" will catch all of them, but filtering on "warblers" will be more precise. But it's a slippery slope once you're forced to grapple with a hierarchy of mutually exclusive tags. I don't take a lot of lizard or snake pictures, but should I make them subtags of the "reptile" tag? But then should "reptiles" be subordinate to "animals"? I'm leaning against the hierarchy; the bird example above can be avoided by tagging an image with both "birds" and "warblers."
• Some of the metadata interface is ugly. After I create a new subtag that's a child of a top-level tag, the interface pops back up to the top of the metadata list. But if I just created it, it's logical to assume that the next thing I'll want to do is apply it. Instead, I have to scroll back through the list to find it again. Also annoying: if I want to drag a tag to make it a subtag, but the new parent doesn't appear on the list, the display doesn't autoscroll, so I have to drop the tag, scroll a page, pick it up, and repeat. With hundreds of tags, this is highly tedious.
• It's not unreasonable that version 1.0 can't handle multiple monitors or lacks a mechanism to plug in third-party tools, but I sure hope version 2.0 will.
Version 1.1 should be here any week now. I expect it'll fix some of the minor issues, and I hope it will improve performance. In any event, though, I'm already sold.
Apple's update to its operating system Wednesday didn't just fix a security hole. Mac OS X 10.4.10 now also supports raw images from the latest digital cameras, including the Canon's vaunted EOS-1D Mark III.
Canon's EOS-1D Mark III
(Credit: Canon)The update also endows Macs with the ability to decode raw images from the Panasonic DMC-LX1 and LX2; the Leica M8, D-LUX 2 and D-LUX 3; the Fujifilm S5 Pro; and the Nikon D40x.
Raw images are taken directly from higher-end cameras' image sensors without any in-camera processing. They're roughly three times bigger than JPEGs, require processing by software to be useful and typically use proprietary file formats, but they can provide more flexibility and better image quality than JPEGs.
There are several different ways to handle raw images. Mac OS X builds it into the operating system, letting other software such as Apple's Aperture call on it. Microsoft has taken the same approach with Windows Vista, though unlike Apple it relies on camera manufacturers to supply the decoding-encoding "codec" engines. Image-editing powerhouse Adobe builds its own raw image software.
Breeze Systems is a small, U.K.-based software company that also has its own technology. On Thursday, it announced BreezeBrowser 1.7, which includes raw support for the Canon 1D Mark III and the Nikoin D40 and D40x.
BreezeBrowser also supports "geotagging," geographic tags in image data that show where a photograph was taken. And it includes full support for Windows Vista, the company said. BreezeBrowser Pro costs $89.90.
Bibble Labs on Friday released a new free upgrade to its software for editing raw images from higher-end digital cameras, adding support for the Canon EOS-1D Mark III and several other models.
The new version 4.9.8 of Bibble Pro and Bibble Lite supports ordinary raw files from the high-end Canon SLR (single-lens reflex) camera as well as its new "sraw" format that's half the resolution and one quarter the file size of regular raw images.
The new version also supports the high dynamic range of the new Fujifilm Finepix S5 Pro, the lower-end Nikon D40x and Olympus E-410 and E-510 SLRs, the Olympus' ultrazoom SP500 UZ and the Panasonic FZ8.
The company sells Bibble Pro for $129.95 and Bibble Lite for $69.95. Bibble Pro includes the Noise Ninja noise-reduction filtering software, features to write captions in metadata and support for multithreaded computers. Customers also get a free upgrade to the forthcoming version 5.
Canon is evaluating a new file format for future digital cameras, according to photographer, consultant and blogger Rob Galbraith, posting last week after a trip to Canon headquarters.
"Canon intends to offer a new file format in future digital cameras," Galbraith said, citing Masaya Maeda, Canon's chief executive of operations for image communication products. "The format could be in addition to or in replacement of either JPEG or CR2 RAW, but the company is still studying its options and hasn't committed to any one format as yet."
Software companies are agitating for change. Microsoft is trying to get its own file format, HD Photo, to catch on as a superior alternative to JPEG, while Adobe wants to see its DNG (Digital Negative) spread as a standard for raw images.
Pentax has released software that lets Windows Vista read and manipulate "raw" images taken directly from higher-end Pentax cameras' image sensors without in-camera processing.
Pentax's K10D digital SLR
(Credit: CNET Networks)Microsoft announced on its photo blog the availability of the Pentax codec used to encode and decode raw images.
Raw images are popular among professionals and enthusiasts who want more elaborate control over their photography, but supporting raw formats is tough, mostly because there's largely no standard from one camera to the next. Pentax is unusual in digital SLR (single-lens reflex) camera makers in that its high-end model, the K10D, supports Adobe Systems' DNG (digital negative) format that attempts to bring some standardization to the raw image realm. The raw codec now available supports the .PEF format used in several Pentax digital SLR cameras.
Adobe and Apple write their own raw codecs, but Microsoft chose to partner with camera manufacturers to supply their own for the higher-end image-handling components in Windows Vista.
In addition, Olympus has updated its raw codec to support 64-bit versions of Windows, Microsoft said.
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