BitJazz Ships Mac Products for Lossless Image Compression

SAN FRANCISCO, - BitJazz Inc. announced it is shipping BitJazz ToolsTM 1.0 for Power Macintosh on the web. Based on its revolutionary BitJazz technology for lossless compression of photo-quality images, the package includes the BitJazzTM compression engine, the PhotoJazzTM plug-in to open and save PhotoJazz files in Adobe Photoshop, and the PhotoJazzXTTM module for QuarkXPress. The tools are available at http://www.bitjazz.com for $149. BitJazz anticipates availability of its Windows version within 30 days.

Highest Lossless Compression Ratio
With an average compression ratio of 2.5 for standard photo-quality color images, PhotoJazz offers the highest lossless compression ratio on the market today, letting graphics professionals cut file sizes to less than half their original size for efficient transmission and storage. Roughly three times as fast as PNG, BitJazz achieves high compression without sacrificing speed. Because BitJazz uses tiles, its memory usage does not increase with image size.

Flexible Format
Key to the maturing graphics industry is PhotoJazz's support of all popular photo-quality color modes, including RGB, CMYK, duotone, high-fidelity and multispectral, with any number of spot colors and alpha channels. PhotoJazz also supports ICC profiles, which, when supported by the host application, allows users to precisely define color calibration of monitors and print devices.

Magic Watermarks
To test the technology before purchasing, prospective customers can download a fully functional BitJazz Tools Evaluation copy at no charge from http://www.bitjazz.com. Images saved with the evaluation PhotoJazz are watermarked on saving; images opened with the evaluation PhotoJazzXT are watermarked on opening. These magic watermarks have no effect on the size of the compressed image, and, as long as a watermarked image is never re-saved, the watermarks vanish as soon as the customer purchases the product, minimizing the production penalty for evaluation. Because the evaluation PhotoJazz watermarks only on saving, it also serves as a free reader, to allow distribution of images to the public.

BitJazz Streamlines Focus, Offers Developer Kit
In response to the industry demand for integrated workflow solutions, BitJazz Inc. has streamlined its product line to fit seamlessly into customers' existing workflow patterns end to end. The BitJazz compression engine has been separated out into a shared-library system extension used by all BitJazz Tools, as well as by third-party plug-ins and PhotoJazz-enabled applications. A software development kit including the complete BitJazz programming interface will be released to developers within a week. The extensible format allows developers to embed private data, such as Photoshop's Image Resources, in the file.

BitJazz Inc. is emerging as the new market leader in lossless image compression technology and development. The company develops compression solutions for key digital imaging markets, including electronic publishing, graphic design, photography, and other digital arts, as well as the medical, satellite and communications sectors.

SOURCE BitJazz Inc.
Web Site: http://www.bitjazz.com