Microsoft Longhorn will make RAW 'first class citizen'

SOFTWARE GIANT Microsoft has pledged that RAW files will become "first class citizens" under Longhorn.

However, according to Imaging Resource, here, the Vole seems reluctant to get involved with the questions of encrypted or otherwise obfuscated file formats that have been bugging the photography industry.

Vole has promised that there will be a "codec" interface for translating image files built into Microsoft's "Longhorn". There will also be a "powertoy" accessory application released within the next two weeks that will support some interaction with RAW files from Canon and Nikon under the current release of Windows XP.

Microsoft's Digital Image Suite will also support Canon and Nikon RAW files in a near-future release.

The magazine quotes Josh Weisberg, Group Product Manager for Windows Digital Media at Microsoft, as saying that Longhorn will have an architecture for image codecs, providing for the set of image file formats that Longhorn supports natively.

He said that RAW formats are tougher for Microsoft to deal with because there are so many of them, they're always changing as new camera models come out.

Vole's ultracunning plan around this problem is to handle image file formats through codecs, provided either by the encoders of the data - manufacturers like Canon, Fujifilm, and Nikon, and Adobe with DNG - or by third-party developers.

Weisberg said that they'll allow supported RAW files to behave like any other image format in Windows. "You'll be able to double-click on them and pick what application you want to have open them, view their metadata, right-click to get image-specific contextual functions."

It will be possible to work with RAW files in applications that support images, without the application having to know anything about how RAW files work. For instance, you could open and place RAW files inside PowerPoint or Word documents, if you really wanted. µ