Photo CD

Photo CD
	;
Media type	Optical disc
Encoding	PhotoYCC
Capacity	Up to 2500 photos in 256 × 384 resolution
Read mechanism	780 nm wavelength semiconductor laser
Standard	Beige Book
Developed by	Eastman Kodak
Usage	Picture storage
Extended from	White Book
Extended to	Picture CD
Released	1991

Photo CD is a system designed by Kodak for digitizing and saving photos onto a CD. Launched in 1991,^[1] the discs were designed to hold nearly 100 high quality images, scanned prints and slides using special proprietary encoding. Photo CDs are defined in the Beige Book and conform to the CD-ROM XA and CD-i Bridge specifications as well. They were intended to play on CD-i players, Photo CD players (Apple's PowerCD for example), and any computer with a suitable software (LaserSoft Imaging's SilverFast DC or HDR for example).

The system failed to gain mass usage among consumers partly due to its proprietary nature, the rapidly decreasing scanner prices, and the lack of CD-ROM drives in most home personal computers of the day. Furthermore, Photo CD relied on CRT-based TV sets for home use. However, these were designed for moving pictures. Their typical flicker became an issue when watching still photographs. 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. Both JPEG^[2] and JPEG 2000^[3] support PhotoYCC colorspace as described below that is used in Photo CD files.


Designation	Resolution		Uncompressed Size	Intended typical use
Designation	(px × px)	(Mpx)	(MB)	Intended typical use
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)

^ Crook, Jordan. "What Happened To Kodak's Moment?". Techcrunch. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ "exiftool/exiftool". GitHub. Retrieved 2021-01-18.
^ "JPEG 2000 Part II Final Committee Draft" (PDF). 2014-07-09. p. 184. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-07-09. Retrieved 2021-01-18.

[1] Crook, Jordan. "What Happened To Kodak's Moment?". Techcrunch. Retrieved 15 July 2019.

[2] "exiftool/exiftool". GitHub. Retrieved 2021-01-18.

[3] "JPEG 2000 Part II Final Committee Draft" (PDF). 2014-07-09. p. 184. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-07-09. Retrieved 2021-01-18.

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