JPEG, RAW rolled into single format

File this one in the too good to be true department. A company named Trellis Management announced this week that it would be exhibiting at the the PDN PhotoPlus International Conference and Expo in New York City at the end of the month a new file format for images that combines the flexibility of RAW files with the convenience of JPEGs.

Called XDepth Raw, Trellis boasts that the format can provide expoentially more precision and dynamic range that any current digital camera can capture--up to 72 bits/pixel.

XDepth Raw files are recognized as JPEG images by software applications and they can be previewed and edited as any other JPEG file, Trellis explains, but when opened in an XDepth-enabled application, the files behave like RAW images.

Another advantage of the new format, Trellis says, is smaller file sizes. It estimates that a typical RAW file consumes 1.5 megabytes of space for every megapixel of image captured. XDepth files average 0.2MB per megapixel, a ratio of 7:1.

Here's the kicker, though. Trellis claims that "XDepth Raw employs proprietary technology able to literally restore the original fine details found in the uncompressed RAW picture at high bit depths without sacrificing visual quality."