Image Magick will open Seattle Film Works (.sfw) photo files
Posted 03-22-2015 at 07:25 AM by flshope
For a couple of years near the end of the 20th century, I was using camera film from the Seattle Film Works. As part of their service, they generated electronic format picture image files in some sort of proprietary format. The files came on 3-1/2-inch floppies and had the extension SFW. They also provided Windows software to display the images. I never bothered much with the image files but hung on to the floppies. Recently, I was browsing my older picture files and came across the SFW thingies. I could not open them with anything I tried on my Ubuntu box, but a web search turned up modern proprietary Windows software (not of much interest to me), and a Wiki page that indicated Image Magick might open them. Much to my surprise, I found that Image Magick is available from the Ubuntu repository and Ubuntu even manages the updates. So installed it. It readily displayed the SFW files and provided lots of conversion options, including JPG, which is what my DSLR generates. So I am tickled pink with that discovery. I retrieved a few dozen old pictures that I thought I would never see again.
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This is good to know. My dad gave me my first digital camera when my son was born, but I took lots of SLR film pictures because (at the time) the quality was better. I have a stack of Seattle Film Works floppy discs that came with the prints. Of course, I haven't had a floppy disc drive in years.... Thanks for sharing your research.
Posted 03-27-2015 at 02:25 PM by vmccord