Microsoft recently updated their online storage offering with a number of file handling and speed improvements. You can read about all of the features on the Windows Live Blog. The big news for photographers is that it has now added support to upload your RAW files.
You can upload your RAW photos just as if they were a jpg file and have the thumbnails and large previews show up in the browser.
Have you ever wanted to have a free online backup solution for all of your photos? According to LiveSide Microsoft is preparing to offer such an option.
Microsoft currently offers 25GB of free online storage via SkyDrive in which you can store your photos, documents and other files online. Now it appears you will be able to store unlimited photos and documents using SkyDrive. No word on when they will make the switch but it’s good news for all sports photographers looking for a free way to backup their entire photo collection.
You can see our overview of storing your photos on SkyDrive as well as how to share your photos on SkyDrive in our previous posts. You can also take a look at a short video demonstrating how Microsoft is building features of SkyDrive into Windows 8 below.
If you shoot in a RAW format rather than JPEG you know that sometimes it can be difficult to view your photos as easily as the JPEG counterpart. Today Microsoft has made available the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack that enables native support for a wide variety of RAW formats in Windows.
You could use a third party plugin to do the job before but some cost money and others were in beta or not officially supported. You can check out a short video demonstrating the new codec pack below.
Photos shot as RAW rather than JPEG have a number of advantages and I have always been a big supporter of shooting RAW photos. This is one more step in making it easier to enjoy your sporting photographs in Windows and Windows Live Photo Gallery.
The Inside Windows Live blog post has more information on the codec pack release.
