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"What would you say if someone told you that it was possible to open and edit a Raw image directly in a Web\u00A0browser\u2014no plugins required? Awesome springs to mind.\r\nTopTechPhoto, the outfit behind pics.io, a cloud-based storage, collaboration, syncing, and photo utility\u00A0service, is hosting an open demonstration of its new technology called\u00A0Raw.pics.io.\u00A0This online utility\u00A0processes\u00A0Raw images in the browser.\r\nIt works with Canon and Nikon cameras only, as well as Adobe's DNG digital negative format. You can test it on your own CR2 and NEF files without login.\r\nJust go to the Website and drag your Raw image onto the icon to open it.\r\n\u201CAt the end of 2012 we got a vision that in a few years the entire workflow of photographers and photo enthusiasts will move to the cloud,\u201D said Konstantin Shtondenko, chief of business development for TopTechPhoto.\u00A0\u201CWe knew that trend of mobility will get stronger, the need for collaboration larger, and cloud storage cheaper.\u201D\u00A0Shtondenko cites the recent price cut for Google Drive cloud storage as evidence of that\u00A0trend.\r\n\u201CIt was clear that without an ability to edit Raw photos, photographers won\u2019t be able to move to a 'Google Docs of photo editing,'\u201D he said. TopTechPhoto was not letting that go unchallenged.\r\nImage is opened in the browser.\r\nCamera Raw is an uncompressed native file format particular to each camera, unlike universal compressed formats such as JPEG, GIF, and PNG. Raw images, because they contain all the imaging information derived from the camera sensor, are much larger than compressed images and are very particular about what utility can\u00A0open them.\r\nPro and advanced enthusiast photographers like Raw despite the extra time, effort, and space it requires\u00A0because Raw images present the entire spectrum of digital information\u00A0for\u00A0each shot. As imaging technology improves, there\u2019s no telling how much potential there will be to\u00A0improve imperfect shots. With a raw image, you can always use software to boost image quality.\r\nWith a compressed image, so much information is removed by the camera in an effort to improve the immediate result\u00A0that many problem images may be rendered permanently\u00A0useless.\r\nProcessing the Raw image.\r\nRaw.pics.io\u00A0is not the first attempt at Raw photo processing\u00A0in\u00A0the browser.\u00A0Another effort last year was\u00A0WebRAW,\u00A0a demo from Mozilla engineer Vladimir Vukicevic. It uses a completely different technical approach, and so far, works only in Firefox. One major difference is that WebRaw works with more camera brands.\r\nWebRAW also opens Raw images in the browser, but only in Firefox.\r\nWhy only\u00A0Canon and Nikon?\u00A0\u201CCanon and Nikon were chosen because of the market share each holds. Most of the difficulties came from the proprietary nature of those files. They aren\u2019t open and well-documented. It required lots of reverse engineering and research. But we did it,\u201D Shtondenko\u00A0said.\r\nWhen you're done converting your image, you can save the JPEG to your desktop or share it on Facebook right from the browser window. Note that this demo does not include the many raw editing options that desktop software currently offers, though developers recently added exposure adjustment controls in the latest iteration of the demo.\r\nRaw.pics.io works independently of network bandwidth\u2014the processing happens on the computer itself. It takes 15 to 20 seconds on average. Shtondenko\u00A0said\u00A0Raw.pics.io conversion will happen a lot faster\u00A0when WebCL technology arrives on browsers, allowing the use of the computer's on-board graphic chip.\r\n\u27A4\u00A0Raw.pics.io"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/creativity/2014/05/02/open-process-raw-images-browser-without-plug-ins/>