Filed under: Design, Developer, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Adobe, Microsoft
HD Photo support for Photoshop
by Chris Gilmer Mar 12th 2007
Whats next for Microsoft? Well, at least one of its eyes is focused on the HD Photo format, once called Windows Media Photo. This is reportedly a better alternative to the standard JPEG format, and of course, it's built into Windows Vista. The new format features multiple color formats for display or print, high dynamic range image encoding, lossless compression, and efficient decoding for multiple resolutions. Adobe has adopted the technology by enabling Photoshop to read and write images that are stored in Microsoft's HD Photo format. There is a plug-in download ready for Windows users on Microsoft's website. A PowerPC and Intel based Mac download will be ready in two weeks, and a final plug-in release is due for April. This new plug-in allows for Photoshop users to save raw images taken directly from a digital cameras image sensor, as an HD Photo image. This plug-in will work with CS2 and the upcoming CS3.
Microsoft has also announced that many companies will be adopting the raw uncompressed photo type format and digital cameras with HD capabilities are scheduled to arrive on shelves in 12-18 months.
There are few file formats ubiquitous as JPEG (ASCII text comes to mind). It's almost universally compatible, available in every image handling application you could possibly want to use and, it works swimmingly well. Who could possibly want to change all that? Microsoft, that's who. 
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
