Microsoft announced some significant progress Tuesday in getting its HD Photo technology standardized as JPEG XR, a significant development for photographers like me who don't like the idea that their camera is discarding data when it converts image sensor information into a JPEG.
But the arrival of a higher-quality alternative to conventional JPEG could mean a bit of a turf war between Microsoft and Adobe Systems, which is trying to popularize a file format called Digital Negative (DNG). DNG is, in part, an attempt to bring some order to the chaos of proprietary "raw" image formats that higher-end cameras produce, giving photographers access to sensor data that hasn't been boiled down into a JPEG.
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