Microsoft, while trying to get its HD Photo image format standardised as "JPEG XR", also continues to work on spreading the technology by more conventional means -- such as building Photoshop and Mac OS X support.

The company released a new beta of its HD Photo plug-in for Photoshop a couple weeks ago, the most notable new feature being support for the Mac OS X version of the image-editing software. Previously only Photoshop on Windows was supported.

"This supports both Photoshop CS2 and CS3 running on OS X 10.4 (Tiger)...on both Intel and PowerPC Mac systems," said Bill Crow, the HD Photo program manager, on his blog.

HD Photo/JPEG XR offers the same quality as conventional JPEG at half the file size or twice the quality at the same size, Microsoft argues. It also supports a richer and finer range of colours and is geared to be built into camera electronics.

Microsoft is not treating HD Photo as a profit centre unto itself but as an indirect money-maker that could help elevate the company's stature in a multimedia future. That motivation is behind decisions such as Mac support and the change from the earlier, more loaded name, Windows Media Photo.

In addition, the Photoshop plug-in helps users see HD Photo image thumbnails when viewing files in the Finder. When saving an HD Photo image, the plug-in creates the thumbnail image, Crow said.

The new beta also separates encoding controls into two parts, a basic screen that governs quality and an advanced screen that governs numerous other options.