article at: http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9808742-3...g=2547-1_3-0-20
This is part of their SeaDragon initiative. Apparently it's been available for a few years. Highlights the difficulty in having a new standard catch on, but sRGB is getting a bit long in the tooth.
Greg Ward discusses scRGB in his excellent article on high dynamic range (HDR) encoding methods.
There are several flavors of scRGB, but the one discussed in the CNET article is apparently the 48 bits/pixel flavor with a linear ramp. The statement in the article "In contrast, scRGB ignores gamma altogether, evenly dividing the tonal gradations. That simplifies the mathematical operations of image-editing software, Crow said." is false. A linear encoding has uneven tonal gradations, wasting bits at the high end and providing few levels in the shadows. Furthermore, scRGB is not a true HDR format, having a dynamic range of only 3.5 orders of magnitude. He concludes that the format is wanting and that Microsoft should go back to the drawing board.
Or perhaps the article is describing the secret version of scRGB on which Microsoft has reportedly been working. In that case, it would not be an IEC standard, as implied by the article.
Interesting links.
Many thanks, Tim and Bill.
My impression is that scRGB JPEG XR will have a hard time to compete with RAW plus sRGB JPEG...
Now referring to this cross-linked image example:
http://blogs.msdn.com/billcrow/archive/200...ge-editing.aspx- I wouldn’t think that there’s anything which couldn’t be done by one RAW capture and dedicated processing. Perhaps the scene was not HDR enough to require stitching of several RAW exposures, stored in whatever HDR format. Perhaps – of course I can’t know, but the experimental details of this example seem to be a bit unclear.
Also my feeling is that the JPEG which is given for reference could have been somewhat improved by –EV, a lower in-camera contrast setting, and some skilful post-processing in Photoshop... Not even counting the upcoming discipline of “in-camera HDR“ whether just referring to some sort of highlights protection (contrast masking), or e.g. Fuji’s double pixel technology :
http://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/40d/highlight-rendition.htmhttp://www.fujifilmusa.com/JSP/fuji/epartn...toProductS5.jsphttp://www.fujifilmusa.com/JSP/fuji/epartn...CCDBrochure.pdfEven while the sRGB color gamut is as tiny 'as it is', I find it remarkable that the results of HDR tone mapping still can be posted as sRGB for web, thus, appearing nicely via a web-browser on my screen. Of course, this is not an input referred philosophy offering most latitude for post-processing.
... but then there’s Microsoft’s market(ing) power. It could soon get a kind of: “I’ve Vista, I’ve Vista’s Live Photo Gallery, why doesn’t my camera provide such scRGBJPEGXR files so that I can get better photos?“. Hard to predict.
My 2ct. Peter
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