Microsoft move could be the end of the JPEG

[Brian]

Microsoft move could be the end of the JPEG (http://www.thetechlounge.com/news/11324/Microsoft+move+could+be+the+end+of+the+JPEG/)

"Microsoft Corp. will soon submit to an international standards organization a new photo format that offers higher-quality images with better compression, the company said today. The format, HD Photo -- recently renamed from Windows Media Photo -- is taking aim at the JPEG format, a 15-year-old technology widely used in digital cameras and image applications.

Both formats take images and use compression to make the file sizes smaller so more photos can fit on a memory card. During compression, however, the quality of the photo tends to degrade. Microsoft said HD Photo's lightweight algorithm causes less damage to photos during compression, with higher-quality images that are half the size of a JPEG.

In the article, they mention that Microsoft said adjustments can be made to color balance and exposure settings which will not discard data like other bit-map formats do. I'm curious what exactly that means..."

Read full story here (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9012518&source=rss_news50)

[Brian]

I assume the file format would store the adjustment data in addition to the pixel data and apply it when it's viewed instead of permanently altering the pixels. Relate it to the RAW files you deal with from your camera.

[Kurtis]

You may be right... like a built-in non destructible editing feature of the format... Interesting. RAW is still in its own league of course, but that would be cool indeed.

[Brian]

Well yeah... they serve two entirely different purposes :-P