10 years ago at Microsoft, four of us had this idea that RAW imaging would be big. I wrote a blog post with some of the history.
Story of Adobe & Apple High-Value Digital Image Applications, Adobe’s angst developing for the iPad, and how Microsoft missed this battle
MONDAY, MAY 17, 2010 AT 3:25AM
This is not a data center post, but one about competition and innovation.
If you are a high-end photographer person you use the RAW imaging format, a higher quality image format vs. JPEG.
A camera raw image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, image, or motion picture film scanner. Raw files are so named because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be printed or edited with a bitmap graphics editor.
Microsoft just released a RAW image CODEC for Windows 7 and Vista, and what was interesting is the analysis says 25% of images are RAW.
Photo Gallery now supports raw format
We all take a lot of photos. In fact, according to data provided by InfoTrends, more than 73 billion still images were shot in the US alone in 2010. If you’re lucky enough to own a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera, you’re likely to take two and a half times as many photos in a given month as your friends with point-and-shoot cameras. That’s a lot of photos. What’s more, nearly a quarter of those photos are taken in a raw image format.
The group of 4 that had the original RAW image idea 10 years ago are no longer at Microsoft. One is a Google executive, one is an Adobe executive, one is an imaging consultant, and myself.
At least now, we finally have the data to say how big the RAW imaging format is. 25% of the market. Now the market is big enough, and a product can be developed. But, it is a little too late to try and come to market now.