CIPA announces ‘PictBridge’ industry standard for
direct printing from digital still cameras
TOKYO, February 3, 2003—Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) announced today
the establishment of PictBridge, an industry standard enabling a range of digital photo solutions,
including the direct printing of photos from a digital still camera without the need to use a PC.
Originally proposed last December as “DPS” by Canon Inc., Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., HP,
Olympus Optical Co., Ltd., Seiko Epson Corporation and Sony Corporation, the specification
was then adopted by CIPA for formal standardization (CIPA DC-001-2003).
Until now, each company had its own proprietary solution for direct printing between digitalstill cameras and printers. This situation has proven to be limiting to consumers, as they areunable to achieve the same convenience and ease of use when using different productcombinations and brands. The unified and open specification ensures compatibility across
PictBridge-enabled digital cameras and printers, affording consumers the convenience ofproducing high-quality photos effortlessly using the controls of their camera. Moreover, theformal announcement of the specification as a CIPA standard is expected to further promote thebroad adoption of PictBridge throughout the digital imaging industry.
Details on how to obtain the specification, logo certification guideline, and other PictBridgerelated information can be found online at http://www.cipa.jp/pictbridge/
About PictBridge
PictBridge defines an application-layer interface that is transport independent, enabling its
extensibility for implementation on future physical interfaces. The new specification is initiallywritten for USB as a physical transport and Picture Transfer Protocol*1 for data transfer. By
connecting a PictBridge-enabled digital still camera to a PictBridge-enabled printer with a single
cable, users can easily control the print settings using their camera and produce high-quality
photos without using a PC.
PictBridge supports the following features:•••••

Print an image displayed on the digital still camera
Print two or more images selected from the display on the digital still camera
Automatically print images using the Digital Print Order Format*2 specification
Print an index of all images
Print all images-more-Advanced features using the print setup option include:••••

Print part of the image by specifying the print area
Print multiple copies of a single image
Print images with a date imprint
Specify the exact size of a print

Printer status information displayed on the digital still camera includes:
••
•
•
•

Establishment of a connection
Printer Error
Printing progress
End of print job
Cable can be safely disconnected*1 Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) is a standard developed by the International Imaging Industry Association
enabling image-files to be transferred between a digital still camera and a PC via USB.
*2 Digital Print Order Format (DPOF) enables print instructions, such as which image files should be printed andin what quantity, to be stored with the photo images on the recording media.

###For more information please contact the Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) at
pictbridgeinfo@cipa.jp