Supported Formats

Bitmap Formats

Zoner Photo Studio supports the vast majority of the major bitmap formats used for work with digital photos and graphics in general, plus certain multimedia formats.

JPEG	File Interchange Format
GIF	Compuserve Graphics Interchange Format
aGIF	animovaný formát GIF*
TIFF	Tagged Image File Format**
PNG	Portable Network Graphics
PSD	Adobe Photoshop Image*
PCD	Kodak Photo CD*
BMP	Windows Bitmap
PCX	ZSoft Image File
TGA	TrueVision Targa
ICO	Windows icons*
RLE	Windows Bitmap*
MAC	Mac Paint*
WPG	WordPerfect Graphics (bitmap)*
DIB	Windows Bitmap**
BMI	Zoner Bitmap Image
PSP	Paint Shop Pro*
MDM	Minolta DiMAGE Messenger

*) opening only; no saving

**) including support for opening and saving multi-page TIFF files

The RAW format and other formats with different extensions but the same basic type are a special case unto themselves. RAW formats contain data that a variety of professional and semi-professional digital cameras can provide you straight from their sensors. Zoner Photo Studio supports the display of the following groups of formats:

DGN	Digital Negative
CRW, CR2	Canon RAW
MRW	Minolta RAW
NEF	Nikon RAW
ORF	Olympus RAW
PEF	Pentax RAW
RAW	RAW file with undetermined type
THM	JPEG thumbnail*

Vector Formats

Besides bitmap graphics, Zoner Photo Studio also supports several vector and metafile (combined vector/bitmap) formats:

WMF	Windows Metafile
EMF	Enhanced Metafile
ZBR	Zebra pro Windows, the oldest graphics editor produced by Zoner
ZMF	Zoner’s Zoner Draw 4 and 5 vector graphics editors
ZCL	Clip art from Zoner Draw 3
ZMP	print templates from Zoner Photo Studio and Zoner Media Explorer, including image references

Tip: For even higher-quality viewing of images in Zoner Draw's format, you can use the freely distributable Zoner ZMF Viewer 5 available from the Zoner Draw section of this site. You can even add that program to ZMF files' right-click menus in Zoner Photo Studio, using the Helper Programs section of the dialog that you get when you use the Preferences... item in the Settings menu.

Several other vector formats are partially supported: thumbnails are shown for them in the Browser window. Files in these formats cannot be opened in the Editor window, but they can be associated with an appropriate editor or other program which you wish to use for work with such files. The thumbnails mentioned above are only shown in cases where thumbnails were placed into the files during saving.

CDR	CorelDraw - all versions
CMX	Corel ClipArt - all versions
AI	Adobe Illustrator - all versions
EPS	Encapsulated PostScript - all versions

Multimedia Formats and Animations

SAnimations and multimedia formats can also be displayed in thumbnails (though not always as animations).

FLI, FLC	animations

Video files*	ASF, AVI, M1V, MOV, MPE, MPEG, MPG, QT, WMV
Sound files*	AIF, AIFF, AU, MID, MIDI, MP2, MP3, MPA, RMI, SND, WAV, WMA

* These file types are only supported when DirectX support is active in your installation of Windows. Learn more about Direct X here.

Editing and Preserving Metadata

Both of the formats most used in the world of digital photography - JPEG and TIFF – include a “metadata” block that can hold picture information. The vast majority of digital cameras and similar devices saves EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format), metadata within each image file. EXIF data describes parameters surrounding a photo’s creation such as the zoom level, flash, sensitivity, exposure time, and shutter speed. On average, 20 pieces of information are stored. You can also fill in EXIF fields with items like a title, description, etc. for the image. Zoner Photo Studio supports EXIF, including the latest standard, 2.2 (EXIF PRINT).

Zoner Photo Studio can also display and store information in the IPTC format, used for example in Adobe programs. Another metadata format used by Adobe products is the XMP data structure, to which Zoner Photo Studio can also save data.

Zoner Photo Studio neither destroys nor even modifies another type of special information, which varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, “Maker Notes.” Maker Notes. This information is always preserved, unlike the case in many competing products, where it is deleted from the file if the given program does not support it.

Metadata is a very important part of an image file. Work with metadata is one of the most basic elements of turning a mere digital photo collection into a true digital archive, and thus this information is extremely valuable. Zoner Photo Studio preserves this information during every operation. But in many programs, especially older ones, you can lose or damage this information just by editing a photograph; for example, if you rotate an image in Windows' image viewer, its EXIF data will be irreversibly lost. Thus Zoner Photo Studio offers complete backup and restoration of EXIF data to safeguard against damage to it; it can even create a replacement EXIF thumbnail.