Microsoft HD Photo Plug-in for Adobe Photoshop

[CoolCatBad]

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;DisplayLang=en

This is the Windows BETA release of the HD Photo file format plug-in forAdobe? Photoshop? software. It supports a wide range of pixel formats (including high dynamic range, wide gamut formats) and numerous advanced HD Photo features.

This BETA plug-in is designed for use with the CS2 or CS3 versions of Adobe? Photoshop? software running under Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Windows Vista. Any other use is not supported. Because this is a BETA release, we recommend you use careful judgment before using this version of the plug-in for any production work. This BETA version will expire after May 31st, 2007.

NOTE: HD Photo is also known as Windows Media Photo.

[Slimy]

And, the long road for Windows Media Photo begins.

[Digitalx]

wee , ill give it a try :)...

[ACTIONpack]

microsoft needs to remove "windows" on its name if any one going to take it seriously.

[clonk]

microsoft needs to remove "windows" on its name if any one going to take it seriously.

"HD Photo Plug-in for Adobe? Photoshop? Software"

Care to explain better what you mean? Because I don't see "windows" anywhere in that name.

[ACTIONpack]

"HD Photo Plug-in for Adobe? Photoshop? Software"

Care to explain better what you mean? Because I don't see "windows" anywhere in that name.

windows media photo is the format name, not the plug-in name.

[:: Lyon ::]

So how do you use this plugin?

You import a JPEG photo file, use this plug-in to convert it to a Higher quality HD format?? (doesn't make sense)

[User6060]

So how do you use this plugin?

You import a JPEG photo file, use this plug-in to convert it to a Higher quality HD format?? (doesn't make sense)

No no, this plug-in allows photoshop to have the ability to read, open, edit, and save this new format. If you're starting with a .jpeg photo you've already lost the battle.

[what]

windows media photo is the format name, not the plug-in name.

No, it was renamed from Windows Media Photo to HD Photo.

[Nightwind Hawk]

Nice. Now how do I view it in XP?

[tmaxxtigger]

Nice. Now how do I view it in XP?

Exactly what I want to know! When I click the file it brings up some printing wizard..

[Nightwind Hawk]

Exactly what I want to know! When I click the file it brings up some printing wizard..

It's obviously going to have to be some update provided from Windows Update soon.. or for XP x64, possibly in a few years.

[Aero Ultimate]

As a follow-up to the front-page article comparing Png, Jpg and HD Photo (https://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=38679), I decided to do the same comparison with Png, Jpg and Jpg2000.

Unlike with HD Photo, you need neither Vista nor Photoshop for Jpeg2000 - I used the freeware program FastStone Image Viewer 3.0 :)

Settings were (unless otherwise noted)

Png: compression 9 (24bit)

Jpg: Quality 80, Flota, Rgb, optimized Huffman, not progressive

Jp2 (Jpeg2000): Rate 80, Rgb

Here are the individual pics from the comparison (Png, Jpg and Jp2) in one zip file:

http://rapidshare.com/files/20357860/Neowi...arison.zip.html

1. Neowin logo

I've included some text here so we can see how well it fares there as well.

Comparison Png - Jpg - Jp2

File sizes Png - Jpg - Jp2: 36.5kB - 26.8kB - 30.5kB

2. Colour table

Using maximum quality settings: Jpeg 100% Quality, Jpeg2000 Rate 1000 (lossless)

File sizes Png - Jpg - Jp2: 5.19kB - 178kB - 117kB

3. MS Logo

I downloaded a lossless Tiff logo from the MS Presspass site for comparison purposes.

The original Tiff is 1746x345 and 200kB in size. I resized it to 300x64 for better side-to-side comparison.

The Png file is 17.2kB. Now I want to reduce the file size to roughly a third. With Jpeg, I get a 6,1kB file with 25% quality, and it looks very mushy. With Jpeg2000, even with Rate 100 and great quality, the file size is only 5.6kB.

915 x 61 - Click to view full image

4. Bill Gates photo

I got a high res photo of Bill Gates from the Presspass site (2704x4064, 4.5MB Jpg) and resized it to 400x600. As Jpeg with 100% quality, it's 317kB.

To cut down on file size, I reduced the quality to 25%, which gave a 52.1kB Jpg. With Jpeg2000, I can go up to Rate 75, which gives a 51.9kB file, and it doesn't look any different from the Jpeg 100% quality file.

Comparison of Jpeg 100% - Jpeg 25% - Jpeg2000 R75 (the latter two have the same file size!)

1202 x 599 - Click to view full image

5. Microsoft 1978 photo

Finally, I used the Microsoft 1978 image to have a group photo comparison. I had to resize the original photo to 200x158 to get rid of the artifacts.

I again saved this as Jpeg with 25% quality, resulting in a 9.3kB file. With Jpeg2000, I can set it to Rate 100, resulting in a 9.2kB file.

Comparison original resized pic - Jpeg 25% - Jpeg2000 R100

600 x 156 - Click to view full image

Concluding I can say that Jpeg2000 is significantly better than ordinary Jpeg, and it also fares better than the MS HD photo format.

What's more, you need neither Vista nor Adobe Photoshop for Jpeg2000, a freeware program like FastStone Image Viewer 3.0 is already enough. It can even batch-convert your files into Jpeg2000 if you want.

Here are the individual pics from the comparison (Png, Jpg and Jp2) in one zip file:

http://rapidshare.com/files/20357860/Neowi...arison.zip.html

Edited March 10, 2007 by Aero Ultimate

[raskren]

What a useless comparison. You do realize that you're re-compressing compressed photo/image formats right? That's not what this format is designed for.

Edited March 12, 2007 by bangbang023

[mattmatik]

So how do you use this plugin?

You import a JPEG photo file, use this plug-in to convert it to a Higher quality HD format?? (doesn't make sense)

If I understand correctly, you would take a RAW image file (like from a digital camera) and open it in PS to save to the HD format. You get better quality with a smaller file. I haven't really got into details about the format but I assume that's what it is for.

[Aero Ultimate]

I've now done a follow-up comparison with Jpg and Jp2, using the uncompressed Tiff files from the new front page article as a basis:

https://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=38688

You can see my results here:

https://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&a...&cid=536332

[raskren]

Aero Ultimate, your maturity level is really something for other members to look up to. :rolleyes:

You re-compressed JPG (JPG is a lossy format) images that you downloaded from the web. Your evaluation of file formats has failed. You're straying even further from the original photos by converting to PNG in addition to other file formats and using the PNG as a control.

It seems that you wouldn't know how to use the scientific process if it bit you in the ***.

Nice try, albeit useless and off-topic.

[6785077276]

Meh, I'll stick to the .cr2 raw files my Canon 400D DSLR outputs :)

[George P Global Moderator]

Whatever the tests may show, we are using a beta plug-in, Who made it btw? Is this one from Adobe or from MS?

I think HD Photo can be good, just need a final version to get a newer test going. And while jpeg2k is also close to the same, it's not being used at all, most if not all digital cameras do RAW/JPEG I don't know of any that do JPEG2k. It's a messy and expensive license.

I think MS could have a winner here if they do it right. Oh, and about having PNG in the tests, while PNG Is good for web gfx like logos and stuff, PNG is not made for Photos, so right now it's best to just stick to JPEG/HDP/JPEG2k and start with a large RAW or TIFF image as your control. This was done in the 2nd artical on the front page and from the looks of it, HDP did do a better job then JPEG, smaller file sizes with the same or better quality. And this with a beta plug-in. HPD might not beet the pants off of JPEG2k right now, but it's cleaner and cheaper (free) license wins hands down.

[PyX]

Meh. I know it doesn't compress anything and that's the purpose of HD Photo, but I still prefer PNG24 over everything else. Why use compression with computers nowadays... and all those fast connections and everything. If they tried this 4 years ago, maybe, but now this picture compression era is kinda dead IMO.

[Pink Floyd Veteran]

If I understand correctly, you would take a RAW image file (like from a digital camera) and open it in PS to save to the HD format. You get better quality with a smaller file. I haven't really got into details about the format but I assume that's what it is for.

How can you get a better quality than the raw file? The raw file is most of the time an uncompressed file that contain an "image" of your sensor with all the settings without any quality picture loss.

I don't get the idea of how you can get a better picture when compressing from the original.

[Aero Ultimate]

Meh. I know it doesn't compress anything and that's the purpose of HD Photo, but I still prefer PNG24 over everything else. Why use compression with computers nowadays... and all those fast connections and everything. If they tried this 4 years ago, maybe, but now this picture compression era is kinda dead IMO.

I think you got a point there. HDs are getting cheaper all the time, Dvds as well and HD-Dvd with much higher capacity is just around the corner. Thus, a lossless format like Png is often enough already. If you need more compression while still keeping good quality, you can use Jp2. However, that it is not used widely today only shows that there's obviously no need for it.

@GP007, concerning the "free" argument:

All Jp2 pics in my comparison were created with free software that runs on anything starting with Windows 98. For those who don't even have that and run Linux only, they can use Gimp which supports Jp2 as well (afaik).

For creating Wdp pics (whose performance have been anything but convincing), you must have Adobe Photoshop, a very high-priced app!

Even for just viewing Wdp pics, you must have Vista with Photo Explorer, no chance on previous Windows, much less Linux.

[markwolfe Veteran]

...

For creating Wdp pics (whose performance have been anything but convincing), you must have Adobe Photoshop, a very high-priced app!

Even for just viewing Wdp pics, you must have Vista with Photo Explorer, no chance on previous Windows, much less Linux.

Yeah, that part stinks. As a Linux user with GIMP, it would be nice to try out this new image format (if I can get same quality images at half the filesize of current jpeg). I'm not about to try to keep archives of family pictures on DVDs with .png or other large (but loseless!) formats.

I just wish Microsoft would be less restrictive with this format that they want to make a 'standard'.

[George P Global Moderator]

I don't know how restrictive the license actually is, but what I mean about jpeg2k is that it's not free from what I remember, it's license costs some thing, correct me if I'm wrong though. So even if it's used in Gimp, somehow the license got paid.

And I can't see why you can't make a HDP plug-in for Gimp also, since I'm sure I read MS isn't charging anything for using it.

[markwolfe Veteran]

I don't know how restrictive the license actually is, but what I mean about jpeg2k is that it's not free from what I remember, it's license costs some thing, correct me if I'm wrong though. So even if it's used in Gimp, somehow the license got paid.

And I can't see why you can't make a HDP plug-in for Gimp also, since I'm sure I read MS isn't charging anything for using it.

It isn't a matter of cost, it is a matter of Microsoft (currently, anyhow) prohibiting use in any application that requires source code to be made available (I think GPL is the only big license to have this requirement).

JPEG2000 allows use of the associated patents without royalties - the only concern is a rogue patent-holder of one of the included technologies suddenly changing their mind.

The up and coming JPEG 2000 standard has been prepared along these lines, and agreement reached with over 20 large organisations holding many patents in this area to allow use of their intellectual property in connection with the standard without payment of license fees or royalties.

And, sadly, Microsoft is no different in suddenly deciding to enforce and charge for patents they hold, such as FAT32.