Microsoft to add RAW support

ChrisJ · June 1, 2005

Thought this article might be of interest:

Microsoft Adds Support for RAW Images [news.yahoo.com, pcworld.com]

Not just for Longhorn (the upcoming version of Windows), there will also be an app to allow viewing/printing RAW images in Windows XP as well.

(Move if necessary, I almost put it in "Wide Angle")

Richard · June 1, 2005

Not sure whether to be happy...

95Mcaj wrote:

Thought this article might be of interest:

Microsoft Adds Support for RAW Images [news.yahoo.com, pcworld.com]

Not just for Longhorn (the upcoming version of Windows), there will also be an app to allow viewing/printing RAW images in Windows XP as well.

(Move if necessary, I almost put it in "Wide Angle")

There is a slightly different take on this story on CNET news.com. It points out that while Nikon, Canon, Adobe and Fuji have signed on, Kodak and Sony have not. Seems to me we would all be better off if there were a common standard for raw format like there is for JPG. As it stands, every maker has its own proprietary format. If they share it with Microsoft, that doesn't make it any less proprietary, though it probably would be a convenience for many of us.

Shay Stephens · June 1, 2005

Microsoft may be the instrumental factor in getting a RAW standard setup. I see this as good news mostly. Adobe (with their DNG) and now Microsoft (with who knows what to come) the collective pressure will win out I think.

rsinmadrid wrote:

There is a slightly different take on this story on CNET news.com. It points out that while Nikon, Canon, Adobe and Fuji have signed on, Kodak and Sony have not. Seems to me we would all be better off if there were a common standard for raw format like there is for JPG. As it stands, every maker has its own proprietary format. If they share it with Microsoft, that doesn't make it any less proprietary, though it probably would be a convenience for many of us.

mercphoto · June 1, 2005

rsinmadrid wrote:

There is a slightly different take on this story on CNET news.com. It points out that while Nikon, Canon, Adobe and Fuji have signed on, Kodak and Sony have not. Seems to me we would all be better off if there were a common standard for raw format like there is for JPG. As it stands, every maker has its own proprietary format. If they share it with Microsoft, that doesn't make it any less proprietary, though it probably would be a convenience for many of us.

Agreed about a common RAW standard versus proprietary. And it should be open to all platforms, all cameras, etc. Whether Adobe DNG is the correct answer to this problem or not, I'm not sure. The concept is good, however.

My fear of Microsoft being involved too heavily is that non-Windows platforms will lose out. Microsoft has never treated non-Windows platforms well.

ziggy53 · June 1, 2005

Universally RAW

Shay Stephens wrote:

Microsoft may be the instrumental factor in getting a RAW standard setup. I see this as good news mostly. Adobe (with their DNG) and now Microsoft (with who knows what to come) the collective pressure will win out I think.

I would almost bet that Adobe is the reason Microsoft is interested in RAW format. Microsoft really wants everyone to think of them in all things digital, software wise. (Heck, they would do more hardware products but they are afraid of the anti-monopoly laws.)

I would also like to see a universal RAW format. Maybe we could design something here? Anybody know what the file/format issues are?

I remember when Amiga developed the IFF file format (Amiga Interchange File Format) that could be extensible, expandable and enhance able. As I recall, they had a "header" with common and typical information about the file and then an optional pointer at the end of the header to locate a suffix/trailer within the file, which could have almost any type of extra information, specification or even another file type, if necessary. The same basic package could hold image, sound or vector/CAD files. (It could also just hold DATA, which could be defined by the application for its purpose.)

Of course we spoke in Assembler and C, in those days, and walked 20 miles uphill in the snow, both ways and year-round.

ziggy53 (Showing my age)

mercphoto · June 1, 2005

ziggy53 wrote:

I would also like to see a universal RAW format. Maybe we could design something here? Anybody know what the file/format issues are?

I'd like to see it, too. More importantly, I want Microsoft to not be the driver or controller. That would be bad for everyone.

The issues I know of are a way of storing the RAW data in a standardized manner, regardless of manufacturer, image size, aspect ratio, etc. The most important thing, I believe, is the characterization of that data. If you simply store off the RAW values from the sensor you somehow need to know the characterization of that sensor (in simplistic terms, is it linear in response?). You also have to know the nature of the anti-aliasing filter used on that camera and how to correct for it.
I'm sure there are other issues. I'm also sure the problem isn't very simple to solve.

Richard · June 1, 2005

ziggy53 wrote:

I would also like to see a universal RAW format. Maybe we could design something here? Anybody know what the file/format issues are?
...
Of course we spoke in Assembler and C, in those days, and walked 20 miles uphill in the snow, both ways and year-round.

ziggy53 (Showing my age)

Yeah, when I started working with computers there were only ones. Things only started to get interesting when the zero was invented.

Designing a standard for RAW seems to me to be a job for engineers, not photographers. However, if you are interested, you might want to check out OpenRAW.org, which is attempting to build an open standard.

colourbox · June 1, 2005

ziggy53 wrote:

I would also like to see a universal RAW format. Maybe we could design something here? Anybody know what the file/format issues are?

Yeah, the OpenRaw group knows the issues, and Adobe proposed and implemented the open DNG spec to address them. Adobe is apparently willing to hand control of DNG over to an independent standards body if that's what it takes to solve the problem.

Khaos · June 1, 2005

I think the imaging software company that almost has a lock in the market for years now would be the best to drive the standard and if they are willing to give it to open source, they are the much better choice than a Microsoft who has already made a monopoly of stock photography, or hardware manufacturers who love proprietary and will figure someway to screw it up.

My vote is for Adobe.

Nikolai · June 1, 2005

I think it's great (but that's me:-)
That means that RAW will most likely become a part of GDI+ (or GDI++, or GDI.NET, or whatever othe name those marketing pundits will come out with), and every windows developer will be able to handle raw files without paying arm and leg of royalties.

I'm speaking from experience. I was working with images before, so when I started my S*E endeavour I thought that I maybe purchase the library I was already familiar with (to rename unnamed here:-). I called Skyline tools (oops, I said it) and they told me that single license would cost me (pinky by the mouth) three thousand dollars. Let alone it would require about dozen DLLs to deploy (I'm not even talking about different DLLs for differen Windows versions). I would have to price S*E $50 instead of $15 (and $200 instead of $50 for pros) only to justify this expense..:-(

Well, guess what: I opted for a free GDI+ provided by Microsoft, and it gave me all the power I needed, and then some..

Now with RAW support coming.. man, what a blast we 3d party developers will have..

Thanks for the good tidings!

Nikolai · June 2, 2005

Along the same lines

95Mcaj wrote:

Thought this article might be of interest:

Microsoft Adds Support for RAW Images [news.yahoo.com, pcworld.com]

Not just for Longhorn (the upcoming version of Windows), there will also be an app to allow viewing/printing RAW images in Windows XP as well.

(Move if necessary, I almost put it in "Wide Angle")

Nikon and Microsoft to support NEF directly in Wndows

"I like to raw it raw it"

luke_church · June 8, 2005

Hi Nikolai,

Nikolai wrote:

That means that RAW will most likely become a part of GDI+ (or GDI++, or GDI.NET, or whatever othe name those marketing pundits will come out with), and every windows developer will be able to handle raw files without paying arm and leg of royalties.
...
Now with RAW support coming.. man, what a blast we 3d party developers will have..

Odd isn't it, that was precisely what I was thinking

GDI+ may be a bit sucky in parts, but I am generally happy, and a lot happier than having to write my own RAW decoders, or licence someone else with licence agreements I can't work with (GPL) or huge costs...

Microsoft have been useful in standards in the past, even if it was forced, I would rather have an open Microsoft forced standard than n propitary standards from hardware manufacuters who have never demonstrated stunning ability to write software (Sony!?!).

But that's just me, the imaging software I write is in .NET, so I would say that....

But anyhow, if MS want to write the converter for me, I'll smile and use it.

Luke

mercphoto · June 8, 2005

luke_church wrote:

Microsoft have been useful in standards in the past, even if it was forced,

The thing the I don't trust about Microsoft, however, is their tendancy to hide things in the API that only their software uses. And thus their software becomes "better" than any competing software.

I would rather have an open Microsoft forced standard than n propitary standards from hardware manufacuters who have never demonstrated stunning ability to write software (Sony!?!).

! As if Microsoft DOES know how to write software? Cracks me up. :-D

Nikolai · June 8, 2005

Luke,
Since GDI+ is the graphics engine for .NET, you should be golden:-)
And I agree on your other points.. HW manifacturers are usually absolutely horrible on SW side. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions..

Good to hear from you!

Nikolai · June 8, 2005

Well,

mercphoto wrote:

The thing the I don't trust about Microsoft, however, is their tendancy to hide things in the API that only their software uses. And thus their software becomes "better" than any competing software.

You are definitely entitled to your line of thoughts, but, being a windows programmer for quite some time, I can tell you that even the part of the API that they have in the open allows you to write rather nice software. I don't care if they use 10% for themselves if I can use the rest and achieve my goals.

mercphoto wrote:

! As if Microsoft DOES know how to write software? Cracks me up. :-D

Are you seriously suggesting that 90% of the world that use MS-based software is totally stupid and simply does not know better?

Come on, Bill, take a look around - you can't simply BUY this market penetration, you have to WIN it.

MS has it flaws, no arguments here, but so do other SW companies. There is no ideal camera, so ther is no ideal OS. You have to find your own balance that suits your needs, so we're lucky to have this variety we can choose from.

Anyway, back to the point.. RAW support in OS will make our lives MUCH better, so we all will benefit from that.
I mean, at least those who use or write windows-based software:-)

Cheers!

mercphoto · June 8, 2005

Nikolai wrote:

I don't care if they use 10% for themselves if I can use the rest and achieve my goals.

If you don't mind your software tools supplier also being your competitor, and an unfair one at that, more power to you.

Are you seriously suggesting that 90% of the world that use MS-based software is totally stupid and simply does not know better?

Yes. Seriously, I am.

Come on, Bill, take a look around - you can't simply BUY this market penetration, you have to WIN it.

Ha! Do you really think DR-DOS failed in the marketplace because it wasn't better than MS-DOS? Do you really think OS/2 failed in the marketplace because it wasn't better than Windows? Do you think Word Perfect was using the very same API that Microsoft Word was using, or do you think that Microsoft had some "inside information"? Do you think PC's outnumber Macs because they are better, or simply cheaper? Do you think PC's came bundled with Office rather than competing application suites because it was better software, or because Microsoft likes to thinly threaten their OS customers that they should purchase a bigger bundle?

Don't fool yourself. Microsoft HAS bought its market penetration.

Keep drinking the MS kool-aid, dude. I've been on the inside on both sides of the river. Macs aren't perfect, but they are, by far, much better.

Nikolai · June 8, 2005

Bill,

mercphoto wrote:

If you don't mind your software tools supplier also being your competitor, and an unfair one at that, more power to you.

I highly doubt MS is gonna write bulk uploader for Smugmug, so I'm kinda OK:-)

mercphoto wrote:

Ha! Do you really think DR-DOS failed in the marketplace because it wasn't better than MS-DOS? Do you really think OS/2 failed in the marketplace because it wasn't better than Windows? Do you think Word Perfect was using the very same API that Microsoft Word was using, or do you think that Microsoft had some "inside information"? Do you think PC's outnumber Macs because they are better, or simply cheaper? Do you think PC's came bundled with Office rather than competing application suites because it was better software, or because Microsoft likes to thinly threaten their OS customers that they should purchase a bigger bundle?

Don't fool yourself. Microsoft HAS bought its market penetration.

While I cannot answer all your questions, partly due to their rhetoric nature,
I can aswer some.

I don't know about your programming experience, but I actually did some programming in OS/2 environment. Hated it. It's so academically written that it's plain impossible to use. It was not better, it was different. For me (and for plenty of others) it was worse...

Same goes about WordPerfect. I know it's a "holy war" subject, but I simply didn't like it. It's a matter of personal preference/taste. I may have a bad one, but it's mine..:-)

And I tried DR-DOS (long time ago:-), too) Again, few things were nicer, but not by far. Some games didn't work, though, it made it for me:-)

mercphoto wrote:

Keep drinking the MS kool-aid, dude. I've been on the inside on both sides of the river. Macs aren't perfect, but they are, by far, much better.

I'm glad Macs work for you (and for many other people). But, as I said many times before, I don't see the any valid reason diminishing other's choice of software/camera/lifestyle to justify your own..

Cheers!

ChrisJ · June 8, 2005

Nikolai wrote:

I'm glad Macs work for you (and for many other people). But, as I said many times before, I don't see the any valid reason diminishing other's choice of software/camera/lifestyle to justify your own..

I'm with Nik on this one. I'm a big fan of Macintosh hardware and software, and I regularly work with Windows, Linux, and Solaris.

At first, IBM PCs were as expensive or more so than Apples. Why did they become cheap? Open Architecture. First there were the hobbiests (like me) who would tinker around upgrading memory, disks, video, whatever. Then other manufacturers (Compaq in the beginning, Gateway, Dell, etc.) realized they could put together their own parts, buy them in bulk, and produce cheaper/faster hardware. This cycle fed itself as more people realized the "off" brands were just as good as IBM, so more parts were produced and they became even cheaper.

Microsoft went along for the ride. They recognized the power of clones early on and created proprietary deals so that their OS would be the OS of choice (for better or worse). They were able to get more aggressive (legally or not!) once they split with IBM. Once the businesses started buying clones, the war was over.

Apple shot themselves in the foot (deliberately) by creating a closed platform. They had solid hardware and a revolutionary OS, but they didn't want to share the wealth. They believe less sales with a higher profit margin on each sale is better. There's nothing wrong with that. Until recently (iMac), Macintosh has always been somewhat of an "elite" brand. The people I knew who owned Macs liked their little club, and while they liked to complain about MS (even though they used MS Office

), they enjoyed being in a select company.

Since the advent of OS X, a LOT more people I know are switching to Macs? Why? You can finally tinker with the OS without a #*$& GUI! There's even a Slashdot article about how Linux will suffer with the advent of an x86 Mac!!

Along with the Geeks, iMacs and now iPods brought in a new wave of users. My belief is that Apple has finally decided to reduce some of their point-of-sale profit and take some market share from the Wintel juggernaut. More power to them! Microsoft has grown old and soft. Competition can only help. AMD has done wonders for Intel.

See my tag line below... just one person's view.

mercphoto · June 8, 2005

95Mcaj wrote:

At first, IBM PCs were as expensive or more so than Apples. Why did they become cheap? Open Architecture.

Not really. Its the great myth of the industry that the PC was an open architecture. The original PC expansion slot (commonly called ISA) was never documented, as just one example. Hard to be an open architecture if its not documented. BIOS was closed as well. All the third-party BIOS's were reverse engineered, to varying degrees of success. So it was documented by reverse engineering, which is always tricky and is prone to be inaccurate.

Its analogous to RAW formats today. Canon doesn't publish their RAW spec, but people still write Canon RAW converters on their own w/o using the Canon SDK. Doesn't mean its an open architecture just because there are competing products.

When I was at Texas Instruments developing a chipset for a 386-based ISA motherboard we had to intentionally design our chipset to violate certain parts of the ISA "spec" because there were pre-existing add-in cards that did not obey the "spec" either. And a big reason for this was that there never really was a "spec" to design to in the first place. Just trial and error.

It is one reason why adding perhipherals to PC's has always been so hard. Why conflicts with device drivers and accessories were so common. Nobody knows what they should really be doing to make things work. And yes, Apple did put restrictions on the hardware. You might feel that is bad, but there is a good reason for it: it allows you to make sure that things actually WORK. For some people its all about saving money. For others, we're willing to spend more on things that work without headache. In other words, there are positive things to say about what Apple does that you don't see value in.

The PC world has been doing better lately. Fully documented PCI specs, USB specs, Firewire specs, etc. But it was not always this way. Remember, IBM tried to keep Compaq, the original cloner, out of business.

I bring this up only to provide an alternate view point. Sometimes what appears a bad thing to do is a good thing to do. Sometimes a good thing to do is a bad thing to do.

Apple shot themselves in the foot (deliberately) by creating a closed platform.

As I mentioned above, not all is bad about a closed platform. There are negatives to it, and positives to it. And if you're going to be an open architecture, then by gumbit be a real, documented open architecture, which PC's aren't. Where Apple definitely shot themselves in the foot was momentarily opening the architecture, only to close again less than a year later. A few Mac clones companies quickly went out of business. One of them was Motorola itself, who briefly marketed a Mac clone, after much investment, then had to stop. Remember, they were one of two processor vendors to Apple. It is one of the big reasons why Motorola/Freescale started to lose interest in being a processor vendor to Apple. IBM had their reasons as well. And it eventually led to Apple switching to Intel. Steve just doesn't understand how much of it was his fault.

As per the switch to Intel..... not sure how much damage it will do to the Windows world after all. You won't be able to load OS-X on your Dell box. You will need to buy an Apple x86 machine to load OS-X on. This won't be a PC with a different OS on it...

ChrisJ · June 8, 2005

Agreed, I should have said "modular" architecture. The Mac was designed as a black box (not to be opened except by a tech); one of the first things I did with my original PC was to add an internal Hard Disk to it (10 Meg, Woo hoo!!).

mercphoto wrote:

Just trial and error.

So why was significant engineering time devoted to this trial and error? And why was it more important than doing something similar for a Macintosh? I'm sure it wasn't a cheap thing to do, and they must have been expecting some substantial reward out of it.

mercphoto wrote:

It is one reason why adding perhipherals to PC's has always been so hard.

Hard, not impossible. If I had a problem doing something, there was always someone else who could help me out. I could almost always make my new gizmo/game work. I'm definitely the exception here, and not the rule. Personally, I liked the challenge. Kind of like building a complex model.

mercphoto wrote:

Apple did put restrictions on the hardware. You might feel that is bad, but there is a good reason for it: it allows you to make sure that things actually WORK.

I don't think it was bad, it just didn't appeal to me. I'm a tinkerer. I've also seen Microsoft use a similar argument to defend software integration into the OS. IBM tried the same tactic with the famously failed PS2 (or Peanut). It's legacy being "better" keyboard and mouse connections.

mercphoto wrote:

Remember, IBM tried to keep Compaq, the original cloner, out of business.

Heh, I was a little too young to strictly "remember" that. But I have read about it later! Whether they tried or not, they did fail, and this led to the clone boom, MS monopoly, etc...

mercphoto wrote:

This won't be a PC with a different OS on it...

No OS X on a Dell, but Windows XP or Longhorn on a Mac with no emulation? Awesome! Other than laptops, I haven't bought a pre-fabbed system since 1995, maybe my next one will be a Mac!

My main point is that I (and many others like me) am not "totally stupid and simply do not know better". When an early Macintosh did break, it was extremely difficult to fix yourself. When an early PC broke, you could easily find the bad component and swap it out yourself. Just a different philosophy. Both systems do the job, the Mac does it more eloquently.

luke_church · June 8, 2005

Hi Bill,

OS vs. OS celebrity deathmatch round Int.Max:

Nikolai wrote:

Are you seriously suggesting that 90% of the world that use MS-based software is totally stupid and simply does not know better?

mercphoto wrote:

Yes. Seriously, I am.

I seem to have reactivated a religious war here... Sorry, didn't mean to...

I'm ammused at me being stupid for using Windows systems, cos I don't know any better :-)

[I use FreeBSD and Windows on a daily basis, so I live on both sides of the fence. I tend to write for Windows as my time is of critical value at the moment and I find I can write faster in Visual Studio or C#Builder than anything else I've used in the past, even Java. My Mac friends are not exactly complentary about Apple's RAD languages

Yes, I do miss Mac's "everything just works" and I miss Linux's "You can find out why it doesn't work, cos you compiled the thing" (a slight myth, but you take the point), but right now I need productivity, and I just don't have the time to fight with Linux/FreeBSD/Whatever.

In short, I'm find wallowing in my stupidity for now :-)]

>

! As if Microsoft DOES know how to write software? Cracks me up. :-D

All things are relative. There are very few organisations now that could build something the complexity of a modern OS at all.

.NET has been the best thing that ever happened to Java. Lets all just live and let live 'ey?

Mac works for you, that's cool, I'm happy.

Frameworky stuff

>Since GDI+ is the graphics engine for .NET, you should be golden:-)

Indeed :-) Hopefully we'll get managed support for RAW, I would have thought it likely... You'll be in .NET before you know it

GDI+/C# is a little slow for pixel manipulation unless you use direct memory accessery trickery to speed things up, but other than that I imagine you'll like it... [Assuming you're not already using it] If you do end up using it, give me a yell and I'll try and cut you in on the tips and tricks for pixel manipulation in .NET, I image they'll apply to Delpi. Do you know if Delphi.NET will support inline 'unsafe' code?

>Good to hear from you!

You too

I've got my flame retartant out....

Luke

mercphoto · June 8, 2005

luke_church wrote:

I'm ammused at me being stupid for using Windows systems, cos I don't know any better :-)

Obviosly you are part of the 10%...

Please bear in mind I never said 100%. Just because I believe 90% of the people don't know any better doesn't mean I think any particular person is that way.

But, you have to admit, MOST computer users out there really never have had a non-Windows experience. They truly don't know any better. How many people are like us who have been exposed to multiple OS's? I've been exposed to at least 4 main varities, not counting exposure to different versions of those OS's. If more people had been exposed to better, more stable OS's, like VMS or AIX, they might look less favorably at what they get from Microsoft.

luke_church · June 8, 2005

mercphoto wrote:

Obviosly you are part of the 10%... Please bear in mind I never said 100%. Just because I believe 90% of the people don't know any better doesn't mean I think any particular person is that way.

Sure, I appreciate that, I was being slightly flippant. No offence taken or intended.

But, you have to admit, MOST computer users out there really never have had a non-Windows experience. They truly don't know any better. How many people are like us who have been exposed to multiple OS's? I've been exposed to at least 4 main varities, not counting exposure to different versions of those OS's. If more people had been exposed to better, more stable OS's, like VMS or AIX, they might look less favorably at what they get from Microsoft.

Oh indeed, most haven't been subjected, and their opinions might be different if they had. I resist the judgement of 'better'. What is good for people is a lot more complex than technical merits. Afterall technicall Mac OS 9 was a product in the dark ages in terms of kernel sophesitcation, and yet it was good enough for many people.

There are usability (and all that implies, comphrensibility, complexity blah.), cost considerations, etc. to be considered as well as pure technical merit. These systems aren't life critical, people will accept crashes for cuddly interfaces, horrifying as this seems to us...

Also there is the side issue of would VMS etc. seem so stable if it was subjected to the number of developers Windows has been? Many crashes I've seen are from badly written 3rd party apps doing really stupid things and blowing themselves up, these can only partially be blamed on MS.

So I think the whole thing is quite complex and messy. Yes, I wish people had been exposed to more stable, relible OSs. I wish people had some conception of what OS level security was. I wish that people thought more about usability. Yes the world would be a better place... Who knows, IT is still a young industry and some progress is being made, XP was a lot better than 98 or the abomination that was Me. Linux is creeping competition into the market.

Hope lives on...

Luke

JohnR · June 8, 2005

Nikolai wrote:

Nikon and Microsoft to support NEF directly in Wndows

"I like to raw it raw it"

Gee...they are finally getting around to it? Tiger supports RAW files already. What's taking MS so long? (cheap shot: they waited till Apple did it to copy them!

)

Microsoft to add RAW support

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