Seattle FilmWorks

Revision as of 20:18, 23 October 2020 (view source) Sembiance (Talk | contribs) (Added sample files) ← Older edit		Revision as of 06:16, 3 November 2020 (view source) Thorsted (Talk | contribs) (→‎Software) Newer edit →
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	== Software ==		== Software ==
		+	* [https://archive.org/details/photo-works-v-2.3 Seattle FilmWorks v2.3 Mac/Windows]
	* [https://web.archive.org/web/20000511205723/http://www.photoworks.com/photoworks/software/PhotoworksDesktop.asp?circ=1 PhotoWorks Desktop software version 2.41 for Windows 95/98]		* [https://web.archive.org/web/20000511205723/http://www.photoworks.com/photoworks/software/PhotoworksDesktop.asp?circ=1 PhotoWorks Desktop software version 2.41 for Windows 95/98]
	* [http://jonesrh.info/sfw/index.html jonesrh .sfw conversion portal] - Has information about conversion software		* [http://jonesrh.info/sfw/index.html jonesrh .sfw conversion portal] - Has information about conversion software

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Revision as of 06:16, 3 November 2020

File Format
Name	Seattle FilmWorks
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Graphics Seattle FilmWorks
Extension(s)	.sfw, .pwp, .pwm, .alb, .#??
PRONOM	fmt/1104
Released	~1994

Seattle FilmWorks, later renamed PhotoWorks, was a mail order film processing company. Digitized photographs made by the company used a family of proprietary raster image formats known as SFW and PWP (PhotoWorks PhotoMail). The most common formats are based on JPEG, and can be converted to JPEG format without further loss of image quality.

There are at least three different SFW formats, and one PWP format. The are also at least two other related formats that don't directly contain images: .pwm and .alb.

By 2003 PhotoWorks stopped using the SFW format.^[1]

Contents 1 Formats 2 Identification 3 Screenshots 4 Software 5 Links 6 Sample files 7 References

Formats

Format	Signature	Notes
"SFW93A" SFW, .#??	SFW93A	Used briefly, up to sometime in 1994. File extension may be .#??, where ?? is the picture number from the camera roll.
"SFW94A" SFW, compressed	SFW94A	Based on JPEG. The most widely supported format.
"SFW94A" SFW, uncompressed		Based on BMP.
.pwm		Not an image format.
PWP	SFW95B	Container format for multiple SFW images.
"SFW98A" SFW	SFW98A	Based on JPEG with arithmetic coding. Caution: Some utilities reportedly extract only the thumbnail image.
.alb	SFW_ALB	Not an image format.

Identification

Files begin with an ASCII signature (see the Formats section), but it's not always sufficient to determine the specific format.

The sfwwhichfmt.c utility listed in the Software section below may be helpful.

Screenshots

Software

• Seattle FilmWorks v2.3 Mac/Windows
• PhotoWorks Desktop software version 2.41 for Windows 95/98
• jonesrh .sfw conversion portal - Has information about conversion software
  • sfwwhichfmt.c - Utility to display information about SFW/PWP files.
• File format conversion software for Seattle FilmWorks products → sfwjpg-unix.tar (from archive.org)
  • SFWJPG (Windows version of sfwjpg-unix.tar)
• ImageMagick
• Konvertor
• XnView

Links

• jonesrh .sfw conversion portal
• Wikipedia: Seattle FilmWorks
• PhotoWorks software FAQ (archived)

Sample files

• https://telparia.com/fileFormatSamples/image/seattleFilmWorks/

References

1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20030403194535/http://www.photoworks.com/Support/FAQs/Default.aspx?FAQ=POD