Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 endorses Redmond photo format

Edvarcl Heng | Dec 03, 2007

Early this year, Microsoft has been pushing for its Windows Media Photo file format into the liberal realm of open formats.

Corel's endorsement, via the integrated support for Microsoft's photo format, is a feather in the cap for the Redmond firm's bid to turn its photo format into an industry standard.

Because unlike the other Microsoft-centric standard, Office 2007's OOXML, which is currently slugging it out with another open document standard, ODF, the Windows Media Photo format seems to be enjoying its ride to mass adoption.

Renamed as "HD Photo" in November 2006 to sound less like a Microsoft product, HD Photo (.hdp) already enjoys support from photo-editing software powerhouse Adobe Systems whose wares include Photoshop, as well as the doyenne of high-end cameras, Hasselblad.

With the current support from photo-editing software and the slated mid-2008 adoption of HD Photo (which will be renamed JPEG XR) as an official JPEG standard by the Joint Photographic Experts Group, HD Photo seems to have gained a firm seat in a photographer's end-to-end color management ecosystem.

This development will obviously open up camera manufacturers to the possibility of including HD Photo as a native format in digicams.

Filed under: Digital Cameras
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