Bill Crow's Digital Imaging & Photography Blog

HD Photo plug-ins for Adobe® Photoshop® CS2 and CS3 have been officially released for both Windows and OSX. They're available now from the Microsoft Download Center. Here are the separate downloads for Windows and OSX . The Windows version is supported...

This is the first installment of a series of blogs on creating Windows Media Photo files. This series will cover the tools that are currently available, an explanation of the various encoding options, and recommendations and guidelines on how to achieve...

This is a pretty exciting day for all of us working on HD Photo. Today, the Joint Photographic Expert's Group (JPEG) announced a new work item for the standardization of a HD Photo as a new file format called JPEG XR (XR is short for "extended range"...

Didn't we already do that? Regular readers of my blog (which is a tad oxymoronic, since it appears I have a hard time being a regular poster) already know all about HD Photo. We've been talking about at various conferences, via this blog and on various...

We've just posted updated versions of the HD Photo Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop Software to the Microsoft Download Center. There are now versions for both Windows and Macintosh OS X. There is an updated beta for Windows Vista and Windows XP , plus a new...

A New Name and a New License No, it's not another file format. We have re-christened Windows Media Photo as HD Photo . We've listened closely to the feedback from our partners and customers, and in response, we have made some important changes, including...

I’m very excited to share the news that JPEG XR is now an approved ISO/IEC International standard.  (It’s official designation is ISO/IEC 29199-2.)  In addition, JPEG XR has also been approved as ITU Recommendation T.832.  You can find...

HD Photo supports high dynamic range wide gamut color (HDR/WG) image content using the scRGB color profile with multiple fixed point or floating point numerical formats in 16 or 32 bits per channel (bpc). HDR/WG introduces a fundamentally different way...

A Mode by Any other Name So, as reported previously, we now have released a beta of the Windows HD Photo Plug-in for Adobe® Photoshop® software . This plug-in allows you to open and save HD Photo files from Photoshop. Photoshop is a powerful application...

This is the first installment of what I plan to be an ongoing series of personal technical notes about all things related to Windows Media Photo. We’re starting with the very basics – pixel formats. Windows Media Photo supports far more pixel formats...

This is the second part of a discussion of the pixel formats supported by Windows Media Photo. I definitely recommend you read Part 1 (below) first. It will provide some important background information that will help with the understanding of Part 2...

  The JPEG XR Technical Spec Work is Done The headline for this blog post is the headline of the press release from the most recent meeting of the Joint Photographic Expert’s Group (JPEG) Committee.  The JPEG XR standard has advanced to Draft...

Give it a Whirl By now you may have already heard of and played with Photosynth, a new Technology Preview from Microsoft Live Labs. If you haven't had a chance to try out Photosynth for yourself, trust me, you'll be glad you spent the time to check...

Ok, I know I said my next blog post would be on creating Windows Media Photo files. I am working on that and will post it soon. But I wanted to take a brief detour to let everyone know the licensing information for implementing Windows Media Photo on...

The PowerPoint slide deck from my presentation on Windows Media Photo at WinHEC 2006 is now posted online here: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/StillImage/default.mspx or here: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winhec/pres06.mspx This deck...

The Beta 2 version of Microsoft® Expression® Design was recently released with full support for opening and saving HD Photo files. It's available for either Windows Vista or Windows XP. So what exactly is Expression Design? In the words of the product...

I'll be attending WinHEC again this year, with multiple sessions on HD Photo. WinHEC 2007 takes place at the Los Angeles Convention Center May 15th-17th. I'll be presenting a session entitled "HD Photo Implemention Guidelines" on Wednesday at 11A. I'm...

HD Photo supports a new paradigm for image editing. , Higher fidelity images can be stored in a high dynamic range, wide gamut format using either fixed or floating point numerical encoding. HD Photo retains image content that would otherwise fall outside...

I'm Bill Crow, the Program Manager for Windows Media Photo at Microsoft. The purpose of this blog is to provide information and updates on Windows Media Photo, answer questions, provide technical assistance and stimulate open conversation. I expect there...

The fine folks at the Graphics and Media Lab at Moscow State University (MSU) have completed a comparison of Windows Media Photo and nine different implementations of JPEG-2000. Their results are right in line with our own analysis; it confirms our message...

I'll be traveling to the Pacific Rim next week (8/19-8/25), visiting several of our partners Taiwan and Japan. I'll also be presenting a paper on Windows Media Photo at the Society for Photographic Science and Technology of Japan at the Shonan Village...

Ok, so I've most definitely been neglecting this blog for way too long. It's the most common form of blogicide; you start out with the greatest of intentions and then, well, life happens. But fear not, I'm not going to let that happen. My lame excuse...

Hello again, I’ll be speaking about Windows Media Photo at a couple upcoming events this month. Here are the details. On Tuesday, June 20 th I’ll be speaking at WinHEC 2006 in Japan . My presentation will be in English, with live translation...

Windows Vista and .NET Framework 3.0 programmers can access the HD Photo codec from managed code. There are a few restrictions when using the managed code interfaces compared to the unmanaged WIC interfaces. Most notably, not all the pixel formats are...

Can you believe it? A short blog entry! The original URL I provided (in my welcome blog post) for the WIC documentation has changed. You can now find information about the WIC interfaces here: http://windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms735422...