14 DAY TRIAL // The Windows operating system is an accessible application that allows the users to work with almost every file format available in the present. Today, Microsoft announces a new format patented by the company that will enhance the qualities of the digital images created by professional photographers, allowing them to create improved quality bundled with reduced size. The HD format will provide up to twice compression efficiency than JPEG, allowing editors to decode only the information included in certain regions or elements of the image.
"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," said Amir Majidimehr, corporate vice president of the Consumer Media Technology Group at Microsoft. "HD Photo fully preserves the original image fidelity with high dynamic range while still allowing for significant improvement in compression size." In addition, HD Photo offers both lossless and lossy image compression, and can retain the full dynamic range and color gamut data from a camera's sensor," Microsoft sustained in a press release.
Using a powerful partnership with Adobe, Microsoft revealed a new set of HD Photo plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop that will help professional photographers manipulate the images taken in the HD format directly from Photoshop. If you want to try the new set of tools, you should check the Microsoft download website.
The HD format is already compatible with Windows Vista through the Windows Imaging Component (WIC) codec and can be also used on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 if you install a free WIC utility. This format is also compatible in the .Net Framework 3.0 development platform and also available for Mac OSX.
"With support on popular platforms such as Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac OS X, HD Photo will allow consumers to easily view, edit and share images without conversion or special applications. The format also allows for flexible metadata handling and supports industry-standard metadata formats," the software giant concluded.