Convert RAW to Adobe .dng format? Good idea??

peestandingup · April 15, 2006

Just got my first DSLR camera that can shoot RAW (.nef) files. Im a little concerned about the future, so I was wondering how many of you convert your RAW files to Adobe's open .dng format in hopes that it will become the standard someday. As it is now, there has to be some kind of standard come along for RAW files, it cant keep going like this. Thanks.

Richard · April 15, 2006

peestandingup wrote:

Im a little concerned about the future, so I was wondering how many of you convert your RAW files to Adobe's open .dng format in hopes that it will become the standard someday.

It sure would be nice if camera makers could agree on a standard, but I am not holding my breath. At present I keep both the Canon CR2 raw files and the final JPGs after post, but nothing else. If I had terabytes of online storage I would probably keep the PSD files and maybe forget about the JPGs. I do have my offline backup disks separated by file type, so if there is any need to convert to DNG (or anything else) in the future, it should be easy to do a batch conversion. As long as all the software you use can process the NEF files, I don't see any great advantage in converting.

Cheers,

photocat · April 15, 2006

It is my religion to keep the NEF originals burned onto DVD, I then convert the copies on my desktop into DNG, toss the nefs (since I have a fresh virgin file on the earlier burned DVD), and so far have been happy with the DNG format. They open in RAW in bridge, or you can open them in Lightroom, I believe that it is a matter of time before DNG will be all over the place...
It is also cross brands/rawformats/camera's...
It is pretty universal I would say (of course all this is my humble opinion...)

luke_church · April 15, 2006

I use DNG and keep the CR2s.

I believe that it is a matter of time before DNG will be all over the place...

Hmm.... DNG is not simple, and I think Adobe's SDK currently is a little weak for providing support to 3rd party apps. (E.g. I didn't see a Java parser library)

This is partially I suspect because RAW is fundamentally a bit more complex than JPG.

Get back to me in August, when I've had to take the DNG standard apart line by line

:

peestandingup · April 15, 2006

Yeah, for now, the .dng file is less compatable with my entire system on Mac OS X. About the only thing that will see it is Adobe's software (of course) and the Mac Preview application. I cant import it into iPhoto for storage purposes, but I can the .nef files from my D50.

I hope it catches on though & maybe camera makers can offer a firmware upgrade for existing DSLRs that didnt ship with .dng enabled. If thats even possible to do.

luke_church · April 15, 2006

I hope it catches on though & maybe camera makers can offer a firmware upgrade for existing DSLRs that didnt ship with .dng enabled. If thats even possible to do.

Whilst I would love this to happen, I think it's, shall we say, somewhat unlikely.

I see close to no commercial justification (what other software talks DNG anyway?), and let us remember who we're talking about

Sony: We encrypt our RAW files using a weak encryption algorithm, for no apparent reason. XOR is not your friend Sony....

Nikon: After their spat with Adobe, I don't see them exactly bowling over to spend $10,000s on back-porting DNG to their firmware, even if the custom CPUs that DSLRs use could support it.

It just ain't going to happen... :-(

Good job the DNG converter is easy to use...

Luke

David_S85 · April 15, 2006

I also don't yet save as anything but .CR2 and .JPG that get produced from the camera.

DNG does sound like a good idea, but it is not the standard that Adobe is selling it as. If you can also make one of those, then by all means do so, but don't delete the original .CR2's (or .NEFs for you Nikonians).

If storage is not an issue, 16-bit .TIFF are another option - and they're as universal as they get. The 48+MB files are a tad top heavy, but for real important shots, it might be a good gamble to have one of those around for the future as well. Every decent editor should be able to produce 16-bit .TIFFs

8-bit LZW lossless compressed .TIF files might also be an option if space is short.

Art Scott · April 15, 2006

There is the open Raw group:

http://www.openraw.org/

That is trying to get all Camera mfg's to openly document ALL their raw files.....past , present and future.....

And then there is PASS..............

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0409/04092705pass_group.asp

Who met in Colonge Germany in Sept:

{Exerpt follows:}
Press Release:
Konica Minolta Photo Imaging, Inc. Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. and Eastman Kodak Company, Form Picture Archiving and Sharing Standard (PASS) Group

Defines Picture and Video Storage Parameters to Optimize Future Consumer Use; Input Sought on Version 1.0 Specification

COLOGNE, Germany, September 27 — Konica Minolta Photo Imaging Inc. Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., and Eastman Kodak Company, today announced an agreement to jointly develop a set of open storage standards for the consumer imaging and electronics industries, aimed at the preservation of digital photos and motion images on CDs, DVDs or other media. As information storage technologies advance, the Picture Archiving and Sharing Standard (PASS) group’s intention is to enable digital file compatibility with future playback devices, preserving the satisfying ‘photo experience’ that consumers have enjoyed for decades.
The group intends that the new standard will:

Define the requirements of digital media authoring/archival, playback, and print enablement for a new generation of products and services;
Provide interoperability for pictures, motion images, audio and related content among such future systems;
And utilize and unify multiple existing standards, to better meet the consumers desire to easily store, organize, print and share for generations to come.

Konica Minolta, Fujifilm, and Kodak have previously worked together on standards to make traditional photofinishing ubiquitous. In much the same way that today's consumer can get nearly any brand of film processed at any location, the PASS group wants to ensure that digital images can be retrieved from any digital device or storage medium.{/excerpt}

I would say that unfortunately DNG will not become the standard....it has been there for years for any camera mfg'ing company to pick up and use for FREE.....

But Nooooooooooooo these 3 want to make another format for everyone to deal with......

BenA2 · April 19, 2006

I save both
The scheme I've been using recently is to archive both the RAW and DNG files. But, I do the work on the DNG files. Right now I have the space to accomodate this, but I've segregated my directories sufficiently to easily delete all the RAW files should space become an issue.

This arragnement favors backing the DNG format in the long term, but keeps me from completely divorcing myself from native RAW files while the market sorts itself out. I've been pretty much swayed by the argument and concern that camera vendors and software developers will not continue to provide legacy support for obsolete cameras ten (and maybe even five) years down the road. This is particularly an issue for files from nitche cameras, like those from my Fuji s20Pro, which has limited RAW support by Adobe as is. I'm less concerned about my 350D CR2 files, but years down the road, there's no guarantee I'll be able to process these files with PS CS10 or Lightroom or whatever. Apparently, I've been convinced, though, that somehow I'll be able to open those DNG files.

As much as I support the concept of Open RAW and the solution of the DNG format, there is one thing that worries me. It seems that with the proprietary RAW formats, the manufacturers have the ability to incorporate advanced features in their files that the creaters of the DNG format could not have foreseen, and therefore, not have provided a means to save the data specific to those features. As an extreme example, consider the experimental camera that has been developed to acheive final focus in post processing. Can the RAW data from that camera be stored in a DNG format? What happens when one day 20 years from now we're all shooting with that kind of camera? Will we at that point be working with DNG v.8000 format and no longer have legacy support for today's DNG?

It's a tough call. But, for today, I'm still more confident I'll be able to open a DNG file with the latest software in ten years than I am a native RAW file.

Ben

luke_church · April 19, 2006

The DNG standard has the ability to support 'private data fields' so manufacturers can place 'advanced data' in them. Whether this is a good idea or not seems more up for question.

DNG processors are likely to be backwards compatible. Their statement is that a DNG processor should not try and open a file that has a major version number greater than that of the processor.

It is not so unreasonable for backward compatibility on a single format, the issue is more backward compatibility on n formats over m years becomes expensive.

And an 'upgrader' to a new standard shouldn't be too hard.

One is never going to be able to predict the data formats of the future, so one may as well just do the best job one can today, otherwise one just doesn't do anything....

:

Luke

BenA2 · April 19, 2006

Thanks
Thanks for the info Luke. I haven't dug into the technical details of DNG, so I appreciate you sharing your knowledge.

I agree, the best we can do is make the best guess we can with what we know today. Even with my doubts, I still trust the longevity of DNG over native RAW. I'd just like to see it catch on a little more. It makes me wonder how long it took people to warm to PDF.

Ben

Convert RAW to Adobe .dng format? Good idea??

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