HD Photo plug-ins for Photoshop released from Redmond

Microsoft is really throwing the gauntlet down and by how things are progressing, it's a well-aimed one.

With the announcement of official plug-ins (for Vista, XP and OSX) for Adobe Photoshop CS2 and CS3, arguably the kingpins of image editing software, HD Photo has gained more traction.

HD Photo is Microsoft's supposed gift to the photographic world. It is designed to be used as a new industry standard for compressed image file formats.

According to this blog, while it is not officially supported, older versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements have limited compatibility with these plug-ins.

For download information, check this link.

Via Bill Crow's HD Photo Blog

Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 endorses Redmond photo format

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.

HD Photo to become JPEG XR

A new attempt to provide a higher-end sequel to the ubiquitous JPEG image standard is officially under way.

The multiple countries participating in the Joint Photographic Experts Group, which created the JPEG standard, have approved an effort to make Microsoft's HD Photo format a standard called JPEG XR, said Bill Crow, who has led Microsoft's HD Photo effort and who just took over the company's Microsoft Live Labs Seadragon imaging project. XR stands for "extended range", a reference to the format's ability to show a wider and finer range of tonal gradations and a richer color palette.
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