File saving for the future, PSD or TIFF?

[480sparky37 37]

Use DNG....

Now argue on...

No more of a guarantee than any other format.

 

[SCraig]

My argument is not that it may or may not become a problem. I was stating that there's no reason to rush out and convert everything right away. It's true if they stop supporting older releases of adobe it may not be supported on future OS builds. But that is something YOU as a user have to choose to do. Before you update your OS you can make sure if your software will be compatible. There is no expiration date on your current software other than your own need to move on. If that time every comes you are free to open your files with current software and export as you see fit. At the end of the day PSD files are a propitiatory software. Adobe has made the change so you're either with it, or you are not. If not there are other programs to be had, and some even being free. If you totally can't live without adobe in your work flow then pay for it, or continue to use the build that you have now.

To clarify I'm not saying what Adobe is doing is right or wrong. In my specific case it actually benefits me, but that doesn't mean that I can't see it from other peoples perspectives. What I am trying to say is that the change has been made so it is what it is. But there is no reason to rush out to convert files or panic.

I agree with that. Changes do take time and seldom does one occur with no advance warning. It can become a monumental task to make the switch when it becomes necessary, but the opportunity is normally there.

 

[usayit]

Use DNG....

Now argue on...

No more of a guarantee than any other format.

You don't know what you are talking about.... move on.

We've been down this path before and there is no need to rehash... Your stance is based on the assumptions that reverse engineering is easy and cost free. Even as much as indicating that hardware reverse engineering is easier than software. Its a debate stance from the eyes of a novice who never had to do it... or even build an understanding of such an undertaking.


http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/digital-discussion-q/313941-dng-raw-2.html

 

[usayit]

Oh yes... if I were to choose between PSD and TIFF. I think I would choose TIFF.

Either way... neither will "avoid" Adobe... TIFF spec is copyrighted and owned by Adobe.

 

[480sparky37 37]

You don't know what you are talking about.... move on.

We've been down this path before and there is no need to rehash... Your stance is based on the assumptions that reverse engineering is easy and cost free. Even as much as indicating that hardware reverse engineering is easier than software. Its a debate stance from the eyes of a novice who never had to do it.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/digital-discussion-q/313941-dng-raw-2.html

Try again.

You can thump your chest as much as you want and claim intellectual superiority until Armagedon. That still does not change the fact that there is no guarantee that any format and software will be viable any time in the future. This includes your precious .DNG.

 

[usayit]

Sheesh.. read the thread... I am repeating myself to a deaf person. I am not guaranteeing anything.. never said that. We already discussed this and you keep repeating yourself regardless. Nothing is guaranteed. Its all about bettering the chances of recovery. I can translate data from one format to another rather easily given properly documented format... not so if reverse engineering is required. That's all I am saying and you keep repeating yourself as if that better's your chances of being correct.

With properly documentation of an open format, the concern for longevity is shifted to the media on which it data is stored... that's what archival people should be worried about. The media and the hardware to read it is far more difficult of a solution.

Its not intellectual superiority that I am showing you.. its simply that I am more familiar and closer to the wide problem of data archival and recovery than you are but you still consider yourself the arm-chair expert.

You still have no clue...

 

[Light Guru]

I have to think that PSD is an Adobe file type and that would make it their proprietary property to change and adapt with their future software.

Cop amines license or even let others use file types or other things they date all the time.

Photoshop did not become the predominant image editing software because they kept things proprietary they did it by making the best imaging editing software.

You say there are numerous programs that can read PSD but can they edit the file?

Yes they can some better then others. But none of them are as good as photoshop.

I don't understand why people are so upset. $20 a month is cheep. That's $5 a week. Think about all the other things you constantly pay much more every month for then what photoshop will cost you. Electricity for the house, Internet, cable TV, gas for the car, cell phone. If $5 a week for photoshop is going to be that big a issue on your wallet you could save a lot more by shutting off your electricity, Internet, cable and riding a bike everywhere.

 

[usayit]

You say there are numerous programs that can read PSD but can they edit the file?

Yes they can some better then others. But none of them are as good as photoshop.

This is a very important point that many may not realize in detail. None of the other photo packages are as good as photoshop with PSD support because none of them have completely reversed engineered the PSD file format. Many of them are borrowing from projects such as GIMP (source available) who has reversed engineered some degree of PSD support. Searching google will show that there are many attempts by various parties to support the PSD closed and proprietary format with varying levels of success. Here is one:

Yet Another PSD Parser - CodeProject

Snippet is from the author:

"Reverse engineering is a tedious process (thus slow), and with the project where I needed the parser gone by, I didn't put much time on it.
....
With this project, I think I've managed to create a decent architecture, but there's still work to be done before it has a 100% compatibility with PSD files."

In my previous post, I chose DNG first but between PSD and TIFF... I chose TIFF. Although still owned by the same company, Adobe, I chose it because of the specifications are widely published and downloadable;

http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/tiff/TIFF6.pdf

Its also a format that has a very long history of which it has survived the test of time. That 100+ page spec serves as the "Rosetta Stone" for anyone to interpret the TIFF 6 format. This is one reason why TIFF is so widely and very well supported by various imaging packages. Without that document, it could take years and years to reverse engineer without any prior knowledge of what the stream of bits represents. Years and years that so very few are willing to invest to solve just one format.. more importantly... one single VERSION of that format.

 

[SCraig]

I don't understand why people are so upset. $20 a month is cheep. That's $5 a week. Think about all the other things you constantly pay much more every month for then what photoshop will cost you. Electricity for the house, Internet, cable TV, gas for the car, cell phone. If $5 a week for photoshop is going to be that big a issue on your wallet you could save a lot more by shutting off your electricity, Internet, cable and riding a bike everywhere.

Would you say the same thing if it were Nikon or Canon? If one of them announced that they would no longer "Sell" cameras and would only lease you usage rights to the camera firmware for a monthly fee would you still be so agreeable? After all it's only a few dollars a month so what's the difference?

 

[Light Guru]

You say there are numerous programs that can read PSD but can they edit the file?

Yes they can some better then others. But none of them are as good as photoshop.

This is a very important point that many may not realize in detail. None of the other photo packages are as good as photoshop with PSD support because none of them have completely reversed engineered the PSD file format. Many of them are borrowing from projects such as GIMP (source available) who has reversed engineered some degree of PSD support. Searching google will show that there are many attempts by various parties to support the PSD closed and proprietary format with varying levels of success.

No it's not that. Other software can use the psd file format just as good as adobe. The point i was trying to make is that nobody has come close in making a image editor program that is as good as photoshop.

 

[usayit]

Totally agree with you... PS is the best...

BUT

I still find complaints that certain features of PSD are still missing in these applications. GIMP for example.

"PSD
PSD is Adobe Photoshop's native file format, and it is therefore comparable to XCF in complexity. GIMP's ability to handle PSD files is sophisticated but limited: some features of PSD files are not loaded, and only older versions of PSD are supported. Unfortunately, Adobe has now made the Photoshop Software Development Kit — which includes their file format specifications — proprietary, and only available to a limited set of developers approved by Adobe. This does not include the GIMP development team, and the lack of information makes it very difficult to maintain up-to-date support for PSD files."

As far as I know, no one has claimed 100% compatibility with PSD file format which contributes to why it works best with just Photoshop.

 

[Jad]

Film is the best way to store an image if stored in an archival method. It is easy to retrieve and locate an image in a negative folder. It will be interesting to see how digital image files make out in the future. I think many will be lost on old hard drives and other will be files that no longer will open with the current software. We are headed for a train wreck. The digital camera makers should have agreed upon a file format that would have been universal for all brands at the start of the digital era. That what Adobe has done with DNG but we are back to Adobe again.

 

[Buckster]

Proliferation of Cloud resources make future retrieval a non-issue. It simply won't matter if you have a machine that can read a particular kind of hard media like a disk.

 

[usayit]

Interesting... The cloud is were the next products we are working on are heading. But not for long term archival solutions. At first we were aiming to backup "TO" the cloud as a primary solution but that only works for short term, tier one storage. Corporates usually use a tiered approach to data storage/protection and place data on a "lifecycle"... short term storage is fast and easy to retrieve. Its expensive so the data is migrated to cheaper and cheaper storage. Cheaper storage could be tape that takes time to locate and restore. On top of that, there are two separate problems here: High availability and Data Protection/archival. People mixup the two but they are completely different problems with different solutions.

Cloud is were resources (communication/network, processing, storage) are distributed, easily accessible, and organized as utilities. None of these inherently translate to a good archiving strategy. IT doesn't solve the issues inherent with hardware obsolescence nor does it solve the issue with proprietary formats. It simply "moves" it and makes the data easily accessible in the short term. The obvious question that comes up... WHO's Protecting The Cloud?

Behind every cloud is usually a backup and archival solution that is rooted in the same technologies and techniques that have existed prior to vCloud and openStack. As such we focus on backup solutions OF THE CLOUD as well as a portfolio of products that integrate/manage the cloud.

All those back up cloud strategies for personal data? What they are selling is not long term archival.. its a combination of short term storage, paired with cloud's ability to provide easy storage access, and combined with the cloud's support for utility services/pricing. When you start talk in terms of "quick" access of short term storage, what they are actually solving is the "High availability" of data. Easily and quickly accessing a duplicate copy of your data. The whole "archival" story is 100% marketing and "backup" is simply by way of duplicating your data outside your computer.

The archival problem is not defined over a few years.... its a problem that defined over several decades. Who's paying cloud backup.... is the cloud viable that long... who's backing it up... who is migrating data to safer formats?

 

[Jad]

Interesting... The cloud is were the next products we are working on are heading. But not for long term archival solutions. At first we were aiming to backup "TO" the cloud as a primary solution but that only works for short term, tier one storage. Corporates usually use a tiered approach to data storage/protection and place data on a "lifecycle"... short term storage is fast and easy to retrieve. Its expensive so the data is migrated to cheaper and cheaper storage. Cheaper storage could be tape that takes time to locate and restore. On top of that, there are two separate problems here: High availability and Data Protection/archival. People mixup the two but they are completely different problems with different solutions.

Cloud is were resources (communication/network, processing, storage) are distributed, easily accessible, and organized as utilities. None of these inherently translate to a good archiving strategy. IT doesn't solve the issues inherent with hardware obsolescence nor does it solve the issue with proprietary formats. It simply "moves" it and makes the data easily accessible in the short term. The obvious question that comes up... WHO's Protecting The Cloud?

Behind every cloud is usually a backup and archival solution that is rooted in the same technologies and techniques that have existed prior to vCloud and openStack. As such we focus on backup solutions OF THE CLOUD as well as a portfolio of products that integrate/manage the cloud.

All those back up cloud strategies for personal data? What they are selling is not long term archival.. its a combination of short term storage, paired with cloud's ability to provide easy storage access, and combined with the cloud's support for utility services/pricing. When you start talk in terms of "quick" access of short term storage, what they are actually solving is the "High availability" of data. Easily and quickly accessing a duplicate copy of your data. The whole "archival" story is 100% marketing and "backup" is simply by way of duplicating your data outside your computer.

The archival problem is not defined over a few years.... its a problem that defined over several decades. Who's paying cloud backup.... is the cloud viable that long... who's backing it up... who is migrating data to safer formats?

Perfectly stated. There will be no one common area for long term storage of the images currently being created. Some will make the transition from one format to another, while others will be lost in outdated software and equipment. With the magnitude of new images being created today with digital photography maybe that won't be a bad thing.