Microsoft unleashes their HD Photo format

Microsoft has been working on popularizing their new file format for digital photographs recently. The new format is called HD-Photo (previously known as “Windows Media Photo”) and is aimed at replacing the common and long-since standardized JPG graphics format. The format is supported in Windows Vista natively, and with a plugin from Microsoft will be supported in Adobe Photoshop CS2 as well. Microsoft made this announcement last week at the PMA (Photo Marketing Association) Trade Show in Las Vegas, and they seem serious on taking this one all the way.

According to Redmond, the HD-Photo format is the ideal solution for digital image editing as the file sizes are smaller thanks to improved compression, but the resolution is greatly improved over JPG since said compression isn’t nearly as destructive. The format will allow you to decode only the information required at certain resolutions, and will allow you to manipulate the compressed image data. HD-Photo also offers increased image fidelity, preserving the entire original image content and enabling higher-quality exposure and color adjustments in the image, with a greater dynamic range.

With HD-Photo, we’re taking a new approach to creating and editing photos that simply isn’t available to photographers with today’s formats. HD-Photo fully preserves the original image fidelity with high dynamic range while still allowing for significant improvement in compression size. (Amir Majidimehr)

Basically – this means the image is better, smaller, and more flexible to editing than a JPG (which all digital cameras use)… and Microsoft has said that certain camera manufacturers have already stepped up to support the format on their cameras, though we don’t know who yet. This format would not be competing with RAW formats used by manufacturers on their cameras, but could very well take over from the deprecated JPG format.