Windows Imaging Component (WIC) is a

COM Com or COM may refer to: Computing * COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers * COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS * .com, an Internet top-level d ...

-based imaging

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or da ...

framework introduced in

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

(and later available in

Windows XP Service Pack 3 Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

) for working with and processing digital images and image

metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

. WIC enables application developers to perform image processing operations on any image format through a single set of common

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

s, without requiring prior knowledge of specific image formats.

Features

Windows Imaging Component provides an extensible architecture for image codecs, pixel formats, and metadata, with automatic run-time discovery of new formats. It supports reading and writing of arbitrary metadata in image files, with the ability to preserve unrecognized metadata during editing. While working with images, it preserves high bit depth image data, up to 32 bits per channel, throughout the revamped high dynamic range image processing pipeline built into Windows Vista. Windows Imaging Component supports

Windows Color System Windows Color System (WCS) is a platform for color management, first included with Windows Vista, that aims to achieve color consistency across various software and hardware, including cameras, monitors, printers and scanners. Different devices int ...

, the ICC V4-compliant color management technology in Windows Vista.

Codecs

By default, Windows Vista ships with

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...

TIFF Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word processin ...

GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...

, PNG, BMP and

HD Photo JPEG XR (JPEG extended range) is an image compression standard for continuous tone photographic images, based on the HD Photo (formerly Windows Media Photo) specifications that Microsoft originally developed and patented. It supports both lossy a ...

encoders and decoders, and an

ICO is an action-adventure game developed by Japan Studio and Team Ico, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment, released for the PlayStation 2 video game console in 2001 and 2002 in various regions. It was designed and directed by Fumito U ...

decoder. Additionally, as of 2009, some camera manufacturers and 3rd-parties have released WIC codecs for proprietary

raw image format A camera raw image file contains unprocessed or minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, a motion picture film scanner, or other image scanner. Raw files are named so because they are not yet processed and the ...

s, enabling Mac-like raw image support to Windows 7 and Vista. In July 2011, this was extended significantly by Microsoft itself by providing a separate Codec Pack for most current digital cameras. The

Progressive Graphics File PGF (Progressive Graphics File) is a wavelet-based bitmapped image format that employs lossless and lossy data compression. PGF was created to improve upon and replace the JPEG format. It was developed at the same time as JPEG 2000 but with ...

(PGF) viewer is distributed with a WIC codec.

Metadata

WIC supports Exchangeable Image File (

Exif Exchangeable image file format (officially Exif, according to JEIDA/JEITA/CIPA specifications) is a standard that specifies formats for images, sound, and ancillary tags used by digital cameras (including smartphones), scanners and other system ...

), PNG textual metadata, image file directory (IFD),

IPTC Information Interchange Model The Information Interchange Model (IIM) is a file structure and set of metadata attributes that can be applied to text, images and other media types. It was developed in the early 1990s by the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) t ...

(IPTC), and Extensible Metadata Platform ( XMP) formats. In addition, WIC includes an extensible framework to support third-party metadata implementations. Metadata format support is per codec. For example, the native

codec supports XMP but the native

and PNG codecs do not.

Usage

WIC in Microsoft products

WIC is available for

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

with Service Pack 2, as a stand-alone downloadable program, and is built into Windows XP with Service Pack 3. It is also available as part of

.NET Framework 3.0 Microsoft started development on the .NET Framework in the late 1990s originally under the name of Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS). By late 2001 the first beta versions of .NET 1.0 were released. The first version of .NET Framework was ...

. A discontinued

PowerToy Microsoft PowerToys is a set of freeware system utilities designed for power users developed by Microsoft for use on the Windows operating system. These programs add or change features to maximize productivity or add more customization. PowerToy ...

for Windows XP from Microsoft, known as Photo Info, which allows viewing and editing image metadata from Windows Explorer, also uses WIC. Starting with Windows Vista,

Windows Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file ...

, and

Windows Photo Gallery Windows Photo Gallery (formerly known as Windows Live Photo Gallery) is a discontinued image organizer, photo editor and photo sharing program. It is a part of Microsoft's Windows Essentials software suite. The product has been unavailable fo ...

, are based on WIC and can thus view and organize images in any format for which a WIC codec is installed.

Office 2010 Microsoft Office 2010 (codenamed Office 14) is a version of Microsoft Office for Microsoft Windows unveiled by Microsoft on May 15, 2009, and released to manufacturing on April 15, 2010, with General availability release, general availability on ...

and later versions of the core Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) can import image file formats supported by WIC. Starting with Windows 7,

Windows Media Center Windows Media Center (WMC) is a defunct digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate e ...

(available on Windows 7 Home Premium and above) is WIC-enabled. Also, the

GDI+ The Graphics Device Interface (GDI) is a legacy component of Microsoft Windows responsible for representing graphical objects and transmitting them to output devices such as monitors and printers. Windows apps use Windows API to interact with G ...

graphic library is built on WIC, although GDI+ does not load 3rd-party or external codecs. With Windows 7 the WIC stack itself underwent a major overhaul and is now free-threaded, as are all the built-in and external codecs shipping with Windows. Being free-threaded is also a requirement for new codecs targeting Windows 7.

Microsoft Expression Design Microsoft Expression Design was Microsoft's commercial professional illustration vector and raster graphic design tool for web images based on Creature House Expression, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2003. It is available free of charge fro ...

's import and export capabilities are entirely based on WIC. Expression Media (now

Phase One Media Pro Phase One Media Pro (formerly Microsoft Expression Media and iView Media Pro) was a commercial digital asset management cataloging program for Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X operating systems. It was the next version of iView MediaPro which Mic ...

) with Service Pack 1 and later also supports additional raw camera formats and HD Photo (now

JPEG XR JPEG XR (JPEG extended range) is an image compression standard for continuous tone photographic images, based on the HD Photo (formerly Windows Media Photo) specifications that Microsoft originally developed and patented. It supports both lossy a ...

) using WIC.

Third-party support

As of 2018, few third-party imaging applications (image editors, image organizers and image viewers) utilize WIC.

FastPictureViewer FastPictureViewer is a freemium image viewer for Windows XP and later. Its aim is to facilitate quick review, rating and annotation of large quantities of digital images in the early steps of the digital workflow, with an emphasis on simplicity ...

, a simple standalone third-party image viewer, supports standard image formats along with

and RAW camera formats (NRW, NEF, CR2, DNG) using WIC. An experimental WIC import plug-in for Adobe

Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...

can also be found on FastPictureViewer's website. Another WIC import plug-in for

GIMP GIMP ( ; GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized task ...

can be found at Gimp-Forum.net.Windows Imaging Component (WIC) Plugin
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References

External links

Windows Imaging Component
on

MSDN Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) was the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the firm's relationship with developers and testers, such as hardware developers interested in the operating system (OS), and software developers developing ...

{{Microsoft APIs Windows Vista Windows XP Windows components Microsoft Windows multimedia technology