Photo CD

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photo CD is a system designed by Kodak for digitizing and storing photos in a CD. Launched in 1992, the discs were designed to hold nearly 100 high quality images, scanned prints and slides using special proprietary encoding. Photo CD discs are defined in the Beige Book and conform to the CD-ROM XA and CD-i Bridge specifications as well. They are intended to play on CD-i players, Photo CD players and any computer with the suitable software irrespective of the operating system. The images can also be printed out on photographic paper with a special Kodak machine.

The system failed to gain mass usage among consumers partly due to its proprietary nature, the rapid decline in the costs of scanners, and the lack of CD-ROM drives in most home Personal Computers of the day. The Photo CD system gained a fair level of acceptance among professional photographers due to the low cost of the high quality film scans. Prior to Photo CD, professionals who wished to digitize their film images were forced to pay much higher fees to obtain drum scans of their film negatives and transparencies. Photo CD is still used by a niche clientele, but it has been replaced by Picture CD, also from Kodak.

Designation	Resolution		Size	Intended typical use
	(px × px)	(Mpx)	(MiB)
Base/16	128 × 192	0.025	0.07	Preview (index print, thumbnail)
Base/4	256 × 384	0.098	0.28	Web
Base	512 × 768	0.393	1.13	Computer screen, TV, Web
4 Base	1024 × 1536	1.573	4.50	HDTV screen
16 Base	2048 × 3072	6.291	18.00	Print-out up to ca. 20 x 30 cm
64 Base	4096 × 6144	25.166	72.00	Professional print, pre-press, archiving (optional)

[edit] External links

• Kodak's site on Photo CD
• Comparison by Kodak between its Photo and Picture CD formats
• More info on the Photo and Picture CD.