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An Interview with Microsoft's Tim Grey by Jon Sienkiewicz Our own Jon Sienkiewicz sits down with Microsoft's Tim Grey (Group Program Manager, Rich Media Group) to discuss Windows XP and other developments for digital photographers. Article rating: 7.64

Tim Grey is your man in Washington—Washington state, that is. He’s Group Program Manager, Rich Media Group, at Microsoft, and as such he’s what you might call “the professional photographers’ advocate.” That means he’s responsible for building a community among professional photographers to understand their concerns and requirements and, in turn, encourage Microsoft to meet those needs.

No stranger to digital photography, Tim is perfectly suited for this role. He’s authored or co-authored seven books and written dozens and dozens of articles beginning as far back as five years ago—long before digital photography became the mainstream activity it is today.

“Digital camera hardware has finally reached a point where most photographers can be happy with most cameras,” he told us. “And that’s very positive. Photographers no longer need to worry much about things like resolution or image quality. Instead they can concentrate on issues that are more important—more traditional things like composition, as well as relatively new issues such as digital workflow.”

Part of Tim’s job is finding out exactly what those important issues are and feeding the information back to other groups at Microsoft. “Digital photography, for sure, has become better than film, and more importantly it’s more fun. And I’m glad to see that, as an industry, we’re finally starting to ease up on the emphasis on ‘digital’ and place the importance on ‘photography’ again,” he continued.

“Hardware will continue to improve, of course,” he added. “But it’s safe to say that we have reached a threshold. These days it’s hard to buy a camera that doesn’t deliver good picture quality, so photographers don’t need to be as concerned about image quality anymore.”

Windows XP was launched a few years ago when digital photography was truly in its infancy. As digital imaging progressed, XP has proven to be a reliable platform and robust environment for all photo enthusiasts. We asked Tim how Windows XP can help photographers enjoy their hobby.

“Windows XP removes the frustrations and makes the process of enjoying digital photography easier,” he explained. “XP Home and XP Professional provide a pleasant, straight-forward experience without aggravating complications. Windows provides an ecosystem that delivers the best experience possible for photographers—amateurs and professionals alike. I think it’s the best platform for digital photography, in large part because it provides such a rich ecosystem.”

Tim reminded us that Microsoft provides other free, downloadable tools besides the three that are detailed elsewhere on this Take Great Pictures website. (Check out the companion articles that feature Photo Story 3, Windows Movie Maker 2.1 and the Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer). One example of an applet that was created to make professional photographers’ lives easier: the New Microsoft Color Control Panel.

“The Color Control Panel puts all of the existing features in one place for a better user experience, and also adds some new capabilities” Tim said. “It lets you rename profiles, including the embedded ‘friendly name’ instead of a somewhat random filename that doesn’t have any clear meaning, view gamut plots including the ability to compare one profile’s color space to another, and has other useful functions.”

Such tools enable professional and serious amateur photographers to make better use of color management in their digital workflow, which is necessary to ensure the colors they see on their computer monitor match the colors output by their printers.

The Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet for Windows XP lets you manage profiles for your monitors, printers and scanners so that all work in harmony. It also provides facility to perform many other tasks including the following: install and uninstall ICC color profiles; rename color profiles; view a 3D-graphic plot of color profile gamut; and schedule reminders to refresh display calibrations at specific intervals.

There will be additional support for photographers in future versions of Microsoft’s Windows operating systems. For example, Windows Vista will extend support features in new directions. We’ll cover the details of Vista in future articles.

Tim Grey describes his role in all of this as the leader of the group that is devoted to learning from professional photographers, understanding their needs (as well as how those needs apply to all photographers) and then encouraging Microsoft to be responsive. You can access literally tons of useful information, articles, images galleries, etc., and learn more about the imaging tools Microsoft offers by visiting www.microsoft.com/prophoto.

If you want your voice to be heard, if you wish to express your concerns or suggest a way that professional photographers can be better served, send your e-mail message to prophoto@microsoft.com. Be sure to mention Take Great Pictures.

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