HD Photo Specification Download

Updated: March 4, 2010

HD Photo
HD Photo, also known as Windows Media Photo, is a new file format for continuous-tone still images that surpasses the limitations of existing image formats. HD Photo supports a wide range of features, including:

  • Multiple color formats for display or print.

  • Fixed or floating point high-dynamic range wide-gamut image encoding.

  • Lossless or high-quality lossy compression.

  • Extremely efficient decoding for multiple resolutions and sub-regions.

  • Minimal overhead for format conversion or transformations during decode.

HD Photo delivers a lightweight, high-performance algorithm with a small memory footprint that enables practical, in-device encoding and decoding. It delivers image quality that is comparable to JPEG-2000 and more than twice the quality of JPEG.

Windows Media Photo has been renamed HD Photo. Both names refer to the same file format. Some Windows products still refer to the HD Photo implementation as Windows Media Photo.

This download contains version 1.0, the released version, of the specification and is fully compatible with the version of HD Photo (Windows Media Photo) that is currently shipping with Windows Vista, Windows Image Component (WIC), and .NET Framework 3.0.

Most technologies in the JPEG XR Standard are based on the HD Photo file format. The JPEG XR Standard is also known as the ISO/IEC Standard 29199-2 and as the ITU-T Recommendation T.832.

For additional information about HD Photo and its related technologies, contact Microsoft at hdphoto@microsoft.com.

HD Photo Feature Specification 1.0
The HD Photo Feature Specification provides detailed information about the file container format and includes information about the overall structure, the wide range of supported image pixel formats, and the metadata. The specification also contains information about the APIs that are available in Windows Vista, such as Windows Image Components (WIC) and .NET Framework 3.0 for earlier versions of Windows. The HD Photo Feature Specification and the corresponding Windows development documentation provide developers the information they need to implement HD Photo support in Windows applications, services, and device drivers.

Please read the license agreement before continuing.


HD Photo Specification

Microsoft Corporation Technical Documentation License Agreement for the specification "HD Photo"

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