JPEG XR, an image format created by Microsoft that promises a number of advantages over JPEG, has cleared a key standardization hurdle.
The Joint Photographic Experts Group, which standardized the original and still ubiquitous JPEG format, sent JPEG XR to the "final phases of standardization" after a vote at a January meeting, the group said Thursday. That means the standard's future is more certain.
"The committee expects the JPEG XR International Standard to be published later this year," the group said.
JPEG XR offers a few advantages over JPEG, according to Microsoft. For one thing, as the XR "extended range" abbreviation suggests, it offers greater dynamic range--the span between the brightest brights and darkest darks in a photo.
JPEG uses 8-bit encoding that provides 256 gradations, but JPEG XR can use 16 bits or more for finer distinctions and more editing flexibility. Newer digital SLRs typically record 14 bits data, and the hobbyist practice of combining multiple shots into a single high-dynamic range image also benefits from more bit depth.
Another advantage of JPEG XR is that it uses a more efficient compression algorithm that provides either twice the image quality as JPEG at the same file size, or half the file size for the same quality, according to Microsoft. And unlike JPEG, setting JPEG XR to record at its highest quality level loses no information to compression artifacts.
Last, it's easy with JPEG XR to decode just a portion of an image, making it faster to zoom in on an image, and Microsoft designed the technology to work well baked into camera image processors' circuitry, not just to run in software.
Microsoft hopes JPEG XR will become widely used, but it faces a huge challenge in displacing conventional JPEG. It's taken the first steps, though: Windows Vista supports the format on which JPEG XR is based, called Windows Media Photo and later HD Photo. Microsoft also has released HD Photos support for Photoshop and Mac OS X
(Via Bill Crow)
It's a boon that digital photos can incorporate textual information, leaving behind some film-era complications, such as having to separately record a photo's caption or copyright status.
But there are some problems handling this so-called metadata, and now Canon, Adobe Systems, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and Nokia have banded together to solve some of them.
The companies have formed the Metatdata Working Group and released a first set of guidelines that attempts to standardize some issues that can crop up as metadata travels from cameras to computers, software, and Web sites. On Wednesday, the group announced its work at the Photokina camera show in Germany.
"Whether you're a soccer mom uploading photos to a Kodak gallery, or a pro selling images on Getty, these are issues everybody deals with," said Josh Weisberg, Microsoft's director of digital imaging evangelism and the metadata group's chairman and founder.
For example, when moving a photo from one application to another, a vertically orientated photo can get rotated 90 degrees into a landscape orientation, or captions and descriptive keywords can get lost. Part of the problem is that there are multiple ways to record metadata, including EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format), IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council), and Adobe's XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform).
The working group has produced guidelines to try to bring common practices to metadata areas including keywords, description, creator, star rating, orientation, and location, Weisberg said. The group dealt with three file formats: TIFF, JPEG, and Adobe Photoshop's PSD.
The Metadata Working Group's guidelines are a free download from the Web site, and anyone is free to implement them without worrying about infringing any of the members' intellectual property, Weisberg said.
Being guidelines, others are free to handle metadata they way they want, but the collective clout of the working group members--the two major operating system makers, the top camera maker, and the top image-editing software maker--mean it's likely others will follow suit.
Up next: Handling raw images
There's more work to be done, though.
The working group got started on the current guidelines a year ago. Now, it's moving on to the next set of issues. "With the first version, we began with consumer scenarios. We're formulating a plan for a second version. It's our intent to address professional scenarios," Weisberg said.
One big issue is handling the profusion of raw file formats produced by higher-end cameras and commonly used by professionals and advanced amateurs. These formats are generally proprietary, so it's hard to handle their metadata. Windows does so by relying on software supplied by camera makers, but Adobe and Apple do their own reverse-engineering work to handle the metadata. So for example, unless a Windows Vista user has downloaded the appropriate support, the operating system's file browser software can't report when a raw photo was taken, even though that metadata is stored in the photo file.
"It is a goal to try to establish guidelines for where and how metadata is stored in raw formats," Weisberg said.
Another possible issue is handling metadata for photo licensing information, which could bring some rights management order to the today's image copying free-for-all, but that's tricky. "We're in the phase of capturing the problem," Weisberg said. "There are no standards in the industry for licensing images that are widely adhered to."
Adobe Systems is discussing potential standardization of its Digital Negative (DNG) format for digital images, a company executive has said.
Most people are fine with plain-old JPEG for their images, but higher-end cameras can produce more flexible and higher-quality "raw" photos that are encoded with camera makers' proprietary formats. Because different cameras produce different formats, companies such as Adobe whose software deals with raw files face a daunting engineering challenge understanding.
DNG is designed as an alternative to the profusion--what Adobe calls a Tower of Babel--but it hasn't caught on widely. Ricoh, Casio, Pentax, and a few other camera makers sell cameras that can record DNG files, but the two heavyweights, Nikon and Canon, along with Olympus and Sony, so far have given it the cold shoulder.
Maybe that will change if Adobe can get DNG standardized. The company has submitted DNG to the International Standards Organization for it to consider, said Kevin Connor, Adobe's senior director, professional digital imaging, in an interview with Digital Photo Pro.
He wouldn't promise anything, though.
"It's sort of premature to speculate whether a formal standard will come out of that or not," Connor said. Standardization "can take a long time, with many parties involved and different viewpoints. The good thing is that there's a discussion happening."
Standards have several advantages over in-house technology, whether proprietary like most raw formats or well documented and freely shared like DNG. Having them under control of a neutral standards body can give confidence that multiple companies can have a say in a standard's future, for example.
There are disadvantages, too. Standards typically are slow to be approved and slow to change..
Separately, Adobe said it plans to release a DNG codec for Windows to let it display thumbnails. Doing so requires installation of Microsoft's Windows Imaging Component (WIC), which is a free download but also built into Windows Vista and XP SP3.
A new attempt to provide a higher-end sequel to the ubiquitous JPEG image standard is officially under way.
The multiple countries participating in the Joint Photographic Experts Group, which created the JPEG standard, have approved an effort to make Microsoft's HD Photo format a standard called JPEG XR, said Bill Crow, who has led Microsoft's HD Photo effort and who just took over the company's Microsoft Live Labs Seadragon imaging project. XR stands for "extended range," a reference to the format's ability to show a wider and finer range of tonal gradations and a richer color palette.
"The country vote is done, and it passed," Crow said. "That means the International JPEG committee has decided to go ahead and create the standard. Now it's just a process of doing that work," a process that will begin later this month in a meeting in Kobe, Japan.
The move is an important step in the transformation of the photo format from an in-house technology called Windows Media Photo to a neutral format more likely to be palatable to companies that don't want to be beholden to Microsoft.
However, the move also means that Microsoft will have to be more patient with its hopes to get HD Photo to catch on more broadly. Standardization "typically takes around a year," Crow said.
The wait is worth it, said Josh Weisberg, director of digital imaging evangelism for Microsoft's Rich Media Group.
"As much as I would love to have more support for it, I think it's logical for people to wait for there to be a standardized version of it," he said. "If we weren't going through the standardization process, we'd be pushing much harder for people to support it."
In Microsoft's view, HD Photo also offers better compression and support for in-camera image processing. It's built into Windows Vista, but Microsoft offers the software development kit to implement the technology free and with no royalty constraints. Image-editing powerhouse Adobe Systems has voiced support for the format.
Markus Rex is leaving Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server project for the time being to take over as chief technology officer of the Linux Foundation.
At the foundation, Rex replaces Ian Murdock, the Debian Linux founder whom Sun Microsystems hired to be chief operating system officer in March. Rex will take Murdock's role not only as CTO of the foundation, but also as chairman of the Linux Standard Base (LSB), a years-old but so still incomplete effort to make it easier for software companies to ensure compatibility with various incarnations of the open-source operating system.
"I need a full-time CTO over here. (Murdock) is a busy guy at Sun. The intent was always to replace Ian as CTO," said foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin. In addition to overseeing the LSB, Rex will handle technical duties such as leading the foundation's interactions with programmers and a program that lets developers sign nondisclosure agreements so they can write software support for unreleased hardware
The foundation was formed last year through the merger of two other organizations trying to oversee some elements of Linux, the Free Standards Group and the Open Source Developer Labs.
Rex joined then-independent German Linux seller Suse in 1999 and stayed with the company through
Zemlin, not surprisingly, bridled when I asked if the LSB has been chiefly of "academic" rather than practical interest. It's true that the allies working on the standards effort have put many years' work into winning support from those who sell or distribute Linux and writing software that makes it easier to test for compliance to the standard.
But he and Rex did acknowledge that software companies by and large still certify not to LSB, but to specific products such as SLES or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
"Now that we've got LSB permanently anchored in all the operating systems, we need to get application vendors to adopt it and encourage application vendors to use LSB as their basis," Rex said. "For that, we have some work to do. We have to broaden the scope."
Even for those such as Adobe Systems who don't certify to LSB, though, they often use LSB as a stepping stone in the certification process, Zemlin added. And, he added, Rex is the "perfect guy" to build relationships with software companies and encourage them to use the LSB's testing tools.
Update: In an e-mail, Murdock said he's stepping down as LSB chairman now that there's a new Linux Foundation CTO. "Markus Rex is eminently qualified to lead this important effort forward, and I look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role," he said.
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