Blog Flak

Hoping to eventually replace the .jpeg image compression format, Microsoft has developed what they call the Windows Media Photo specification. It features a much higher compression ratio to reduce file size with very little loss of image quality as well as several other improvements over using .jpegs. The new format will be included with Windows Vista beta, their new operating system. Of course it would take years for something like this to become completely cross-browser and cross-platform compliant. And then their are all those image editing programs out there that will need to upgrade as well.

From my point of view, I would have preferred that they would have worked on improving the .gif image format as far as removing some of the transparency limitations like rough edges. With data storage prices dropping so rapidly and memory becoming much more compact than ever in recent years I didn’t think there was that much need for improvement on .jpegs.

Technorati tags: Windows Vista, image editing, photos, Windows Media Photo