DNG or RAW?

[480sparky]

If I am not mistaken, DNG does not need a sidecar file to save all of your edit settings on LR. If you use RAW, you need the xmp file with the raw file if you want to see the edit on another computer.

Not always. Editing a Nikon NEF file with Nikon software imbeds the editing steps right back into the file.... no sidecar file is needed. I think Picasa does this as well.

 

[480sparky]

There's no guarantee that DNG will even be a viable format in the future. Something else may come along and blow it out of the water.

Nothing is guaranteed duh...

But you still missed my point. I have series of bits on media I assume I can read. Assuming i have the specifications and proper documentation, i can easily write software that can make some use of that series of bits. It doesnt matter if something better comes along... Heck i can translate it to the new format if necessary. Its really not that difficult (i make a living in software).

The concern here is which format has a better chance of surviving. If i have a series of bits and no specs nor documentation, my only choice is to reverse engineer.... Not easy and often next to impossible.

Betamax is a terrible analogy simply because its roots lie with Sony and their hardware which is always difficult to reverse engineer.

.....

Yet how many proprietary raw formats out there today aren't RE'd?

 

[sekhar]

Guys, the point is that you're going to have a heads up. It's not like one rainy day in the future DNG is suddenly gone and all your files are unreadable. If it dies, it's going to die over many years, and we'll have plenty of time to move to another format. If on the other hand you have original RAW files from a bunch of cameras, you'll need to keep track of each of their lives and maintain copies of software that can read them. If you convert them all to DNG, it's the only thing you'll need to keep track of.

 

[usayit]

Yet how many proprietary raw formats out there today aren't RE'd?

You still don't get it..... Just because I won't name one (you really expect me to cross reference all legacy formats with current raw processesors? Got search it yourself) , doesn't mean it won't happen. Proprietary formats are all guaranteed to end life at some point in time. A proprietary format that disappears leaves me practically zero chance of reading it in the future. This is not true with open standards. We are arguing the FUTURE and best case scenarios... and you expect me to prove it with a case in TODAY's time frame.

You are now arguing for arguing sake.

I already stated one case in the reverse. OMD E-M5 RAW file are not supported in Lightroom 3. But OMD E-M5 files converted to DNG are perfectly fine.

 

[480sparky]

You are now arguing for arguing sake........

No, just pointing out that comparing trying to reverse engineer Betamax is a poor comparison to trying to RE a file format..... claiming Betamax is exceedingly difficult to RE, as are file format. Yet the vast majority of raw formats have been easily REd. If they were so hard, then open-source software like RawTherapee and Irfanview would quickly die.

Fact is, even a manufacturer's raw format is not universal across their camera line. There's differences between the files of one body to the next. So when a given camera body is discontinued, does that variant of raw file disappear?

Everyone is trying to 'future-proof' their digital files, fearing some major disaster such as Nikon or Canon following Kodak into the dustbin of history. But even in such an event, that doesn't mean all the existing software out there on those millions of computers will suddenly stop working! Heck, I still have a Windows 3.11 machine I fire up on occasion, and W3.11 'disappeared' years ago. Should any major manufacturer suddenly go belly-up, the laws of supply and demand will fill the need to create software that will fill the void.

 

[rexbobcat]

My theory that the self-importance that Adobe assigns itself will probably keep DNG from dying in the near future.

I mean, they're Adobe. How could they acknowledge the defeat of their own file format? Heh...

 

[usayit]

comparing trying to reverse engineer Betamax is a poor comparison to trying to RE a file format..... claiming Betamax is exceedingly difficult to RE, as are file format.

That is exactly what I am saying. I'm telling you that given well defined document describing the order and significance of each bit in a file, I can do something with that data. You give my a byte offset-length and what it means, I can do something with it. Rearrange it, Translate it, modify it, move it, etc... I do this everyday... this is what I do for a living. I don't have to invest a significant effort guessing (reverse engineer) what each of those bits mean. Why don't you tell me how you would do the same for Betamax rather than just speculating? All of the basis for your responses are based on inferences from what you see NOW. Its all weak foundation for making the argument that an open source or well documented format is somehow less viable or as viable as a proprietary one... in the FUTURE..

You asked me to name one proprietary file format that can no longer be read.... It doesn't matter. It proves nothing. We are discussing viability in future.

You then stated that if RawTherepee can do it then its viable... for every format? was it easy? how much investment to accomplish it? One person can do it now... ow about in the future? Again... it doesn't matter.

This is all basic 101 argument for open source software.... you should read up on it first before talking.


Oh since you bring up RawTherepee which relies on dcraw whose author's motivation is reflected in the openRAW initiative. DCRAW IS OPEN SOURCE. You should read about about their motivation. Dcraw relies on open source nature in order to preserve the viability of proprietary formats. In essence, it brings the internals of what the author has discovered about proprietary formats and makes them available to the open public there by re-enforcing the argument that these proprietary formats NEED to be widely open in order to preserve them for future use. DNG avoids this by simply being open itself... no unnecessary effort required for preservation.



http://www.openraw.org/info/index.html

From that website:

"The goal of OpenRAW is to encourage image preservation and give creative choice of how images are processed to the creators of the images. To this end, we advocate open documentation of information about the how the raw data is stored and the camera settings selected by the photographer.

If the current practice of hiding data and dropping support for older models of cameras continue countless images will be unreadable with no software to decode them. Only openly documented RAW formats will make it possible to decode RAW files in the future.

Many have suggested a common, open file format for RAW image files for all camera makers to use as a solution to the RAW problem. A common, openly documented RAW format would fulfill many of the goals of OpenRAW, but is likely to face significant resistance from manufacturers who feel their "creativity" and ability to innovate would be constrained. Open documentation of all RAW file formats by manufacturers is the quickest and most satisfactory way for OpenRAW's goals to be reached."




PS>

But even in such an event, that doesn't mean all the existing software out there on those millions of computers will suddenly stop working! Heck, I still have a Windows 3.11 machine I fire up on occasion, and W3.11 'disappeared' years ago. Should any major manufacturer suddenly go belly-up, the laws of supply and demand will fill the need to create software that will fill the void.

So how come we lost the ability to translate lost languages and text.through the ages.?

 

[usayit]

My theory that the self-importance that Adobe assigns itself will probably keep DNG from dying in the near future.

I mean, they're Adobe. How could they acknowledge the defeat of their own file format? Heh...

We said the same thing about Kodak....

 

[rexbobcat]

We said the same thing about Kodak....

I still can't compare Kodak to the sheer pride that Adobe exudes to the point of just being jerks because they know that they have a monopoly on the market (pretty much).

I just found out today that if I am ever going to use the original RAW files I am going to have to upgrade to CS6 because Adobe is not going to give the direct download link to the new ACR version. Instead you can only get it through CS6 update

Or buy LR4, which I'm probably going to end up doing anyways

 

[Josh66]

We said the same thing about Kodak....

I still can't compare Kodak to the sheer pride that Adobe exudes to the point of just being jerks because they know that they have a monopoly on the market (pretty much).

I just found out today that if I am ever going to use the original RAW files I am going to have to upgrade to CS6 because Adobe is not going to give the direct download link to the new ACR version. Instead you can only get it through CS6 update

Or buy LR4, which I'm probably going to end up doing anyways

I'm sure they're still supported by dcraw. It ain't CS6 or LR4, but there are a lot of open source options out there. Have a look at Darktable. I haven't used it much, but it's billed to be the open source alternative to Lightroom. Supports damn near everything.

I'm sure it's not as 'feature rich' as Lightroom, but at least it's something...

 

[rexbobcat]

I'm sure they're still supported by dcraw. It ain't CS6 or LR4, but there are a lot of open source options out there. Have a look at Darktable. I haven't used it much, but it's billed to be the open source alternative to Lightroom. Supports damn near everything.

I'm sure it's not as 'feature rich' as Lightroom, but at least it's something...

Thanks for the suggestion. I guess it's between open source images and just converting my RAW file to DNG.

I do have a question for people who use DNG. Do most raw editors view DNG files with a consistent "look" to the images since it's proprietary. Or will the images still look different like just like if I was editing from an NEF or CR2

 

[Garbz]

You missed the point. There's no guarantee that DNG will even be a viable format in the future. Something else may come along and blow it out of the water.

No one is talking about future formats, we're talking about formats now.

Not always. Editing a Nikon NEF file with Nikon software imbeds the editing steps right back into the file.... no sidecar file is needed.

A proprietary file not needing a sidecar file to edit a proprietary format really doesn't matter in the current discussion which is based on the premise that the proprietary format and software may not be usable in the future.

Yet the vast majority of raw formats have been easily REd.

No the vast majority of file formats have been reverse engineered with great difficulty by a few experts. The fact that the very similar file formats of new cameras take many weeks to months to gain support in software is a perfectly clear example of this. The reason it works well is because people HAVE these cameras. Take for instance raw support for TouCam webcams. Took about 2 years for someone with experience to reverse engineer that one due to lack of demand. If it weren't for one genius programmer in the astro-photography crowd we may still not have that support.

Reverse engineering is frigging hard compared to programming from a written spec and you need some serious motivation to do it.

As for the rest of your argument future proofing is exactly what we do because while support won't die overnight it will die in the ages. Windows 3.11 was less than 20 years ago. We have negatives dating back more than 100. You know what happened to my copy of Windows 3.11? Neither do I. If I did find it then it would probably be on a floppy disk which I don't have a drive for. But let's go back further. You know how well 16bit software runs on modern operating systems? It doesn't. You know what any computer you buy now has on the motherboard? UEFI with an unmaintained legacy module which 2 manufacturers have already dropped. You won't be able to install windows 3.11 on those computers. But there's always virtualisation right? Certainly there's no problem virtualising direct hardware access from old systems like Windows 3.11, oh wait that's a problem too.

You have a very simplified view of what it takes to keep old data live, but if you are in fact as good as you think then there's jobs going at NASA, the library of congress, and many other institutions around the world who have a very serious daily struggle with archiving. NASA is actually quite bad at this. Their last great footage restoration was done by some fanatical hobbyists who spent years attempting to rebuild a machine and then decode some ancient tapes.

Fact is, even a manufacturer's raw format is not universal across their camera line. There's differences between the files of one body to the next. So when a given camera body is discontinued, does that variant of raw file disappear?

Everyone is trying to 'future-proof' their digital files, fearing some major disaster such as Nikon or Canon following Kodak into the dustbin of history. But even in such an event, that doesn't mean all the existing software out there on those millions of computers will suddenly stop working! Heck, I still have a Windows 3.11 machine I fire up on occasion, and W3.11 'disappeared' years ago. Should any major manufacturer suddenly go belly-up, the laws of supply and demand will fill the need to create software that will fill the void.[/QUOTE]

 

[TheFantasticG]

I can tell ya if I ever upgrade to a new camera that LR3.6 can't read I will move all my files to DNG.... Maybe sooner.

 

[480sparky]

.......
No one is talking about future formats, we're talking about formats now. ..........

Fine. Let's take todays' formats.

Now..... what, exactly, is going to happen to them?

Are we ALL going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly find our computers won't read NEFs and CR2s?

Is there not software available TODAY that can read and convert raw files to DNG? Will all that suddenly stop working tomorrow?

You all make it out to be another Y2K doomsday scenario.

Use some common sense here. If I can be convinced that sometime in the foreseeable future I will not be able to work with my NEF files, I'll be happy to start converting them to DNG (or whatever the Format Of The Year is by then). Technology doesn't die overnight. There will be handwriting on the wall, I'm sure. Until then, I'm more than content working with a file format that 100% perfectly usable and viable today.

 

[rexbobcat]

I can tell ya if I ever upgrade to a new camera that LR3.6 can't read I will move all my files to DNG.... Maybe sooner.

I don't think it supports the new Nikon D600 or Canon 6D.

It's pretty dumb.