Microsoft plans to add support for RAW photo files in Windows XP for Canon, Fujifilm, and Nikon cameras. Support would include:
* View RAW thumbnails in Windows Explorer (as happens now with JPEG)
* Preview and print RAW files from Explorer (not sure how that would work since printing from Explorer doesn't particularly work now).
* Support RAW formats in Microsoft's Digital Image Suite software (with help from Adobe, it sounds like).
(RAW is not a single image format, as is JPEG, but the generic name for the raw image data captured by digital cameras.) The news from Microsoft is good, but RAW support has its drawbacks, not mentioned in Infoworld's enthusiastic report:
1. Microsoft so far supports only three vendors; when will Kodak, Olympus, Pentax, and the others be supported?
2. Every camera creates a different form of RAW file; Microsoft is faced with continually updating its support (and users face the inherent delay) as new camera models are released.
3. Some portions of some RAW formats are encrypted, and even the most powerful company in digital imaging, Adobe, has complained about that.
4. Most cameras do not support RAW, so this feature is of interest only to serious and professional photographers, who already have the software needed to process RAW.
5. Even if digital SLRs become more popular with the general public (as camera makers hope), the RAW file format is uncompressed, meaning it takes up huge amounts of space on memory cards and hard drives -- especially in companion with very high megapixel camera sensors.
6. Conversely, very few RAW photos fit on memory cards and hard drives. Consumers are not going to take RAW photos while on their 4-week vacation to another continent, in the hopes of taking somewhat improved images.
It strikes me that RAW support in Windows is about as important as Microsoft supporting CAD (computer aided design) file formats.
Universal RAW
Adobe last year tried to create a universal RAW format, hoping the industry would adopt it. Instead, we saw camera makers become even more proprietary.
Now Microsoft making a similar attempt by creating an API (applicaiton programming interface) for RAW codecs (coders-decoders). The concept is taht camera makers -- the Kodaks, Olympuses, and Pentaxes -- provide the software that lets their RAW formats work with Windows.
At least that's the plan. High-end camera makers, like Nikon, make a nice profit from selling software to process RAW files. I can't see them having to pay their own programmers to write an API for Microsoft, which is then used for free by customers.
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