Amidst the commotion of new product announcements at the 2002 Print Marketing Association Conference & Trade Show, Feb. 24-27 in Orlando, Fla., major camera manufacturers agreed to adopt a new JPEG file standard, exchangeable image file format version 2.2.

Several leading digital camera companies — Casio Computer Co. Ltd., Konica Corp., Kyocera Corp., Minolta Co. Ltd., Olympus Optical Co. Ltd., Sony Corp. and a few others — partnered with Epson to incorporate Print Image Matching technology in their upcoming digital camera models.

The first PIM-compatible products began shipping in summer 2001 and by late autumn, 35 products from 16 digital camera manufacturers were using PIM, according to Epson, and to date over 2 million PIM-enabled products have been shipped worldwide.

“This technology makes it easier to get consistent digital photographic prints of incredible quality. Because the technology works by putting more control of the photographic process in the camera than ever before, PIM creates new opportunities for both digital camera developers and photographers,” said Keith Kratzberg, director of photo imaging for Epson.

Companies that agree to adopt PIM technology will be able to get accurate prints on a consistent basis when printing the same digital camera’s image from different software programs. This will give customers an expanded variety of digital cameras that can be used to produce better prints automatically. Printers and software released after the third quarter of 2001 are compatible with PIM and will support cameras using the new international file format standard for digital cameras, EXIF 2.2.

The new EXIF 2.2 standard was developed by the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association and supports information that is useful for printing embedded in a JPEG file header. With EXIF 2.2., print matching information such as contrast, saturation, sharpness gain control, captured scene type and digital zoom ratio used during capture will now become standard digital camera image parameters.

“EXIF 2.2 provides a solid foundation for Print Image Matching in the consumer digital camera market,” Kratzberg said. “Together with our digital camera partners, Epson will continue to focus its efforts on the development of advanced PIM technology to provide the highest possible print quality automatically.”

The first version EXIF was created a few years ago by the Japan Electronics and Information Technologies Industries Association and has been widely accepted in the industry as an unofficial standard file format.

With EXIF 2.2, print matching information such as contrast, saturation, sharpness, gain control, captured scene, type and digital zoom ratio used during capture will become standard digital camera image parameters.

Exif 2.2 will read the print matching parameters from both today’s PIM-enabled digital cameras and from future cameras using Exif 2.2.

A complete list of PIM-compatible products is available at www.printimagematching.com. This Web site will continually be updated as more PIM-compatible products are introduced to the market.