JPEG & TIFF FILE FORMATS ?

[Gavjenks]

My point(s) are that:

1) A decade is not a very long time, and you might not have been so lucky to find such software that easily. Would you still expect to find such software on Olympus' website 30 years from now? Is Olympus still going to exist 30 years from now? Maybe not even 5 years from now, considering they were recently racked with scandal and have slashed about half of their assets in the last couple years. If they didn't, would you have lost all your images? No, surely not. There's probably always SOME solution. But that solution very well could involve being forced to use some old image editing software that the last made version of the conversion software worked with, and which you have to buy, and possibly emulate an older operating system to run it, blah blah. Huge potential headaches.

2) In the same amount of effort you spent downloading that software from Olympus and using it, you could have simply converted your original images in the first place to a format like PNG TIFF or JPEG that you could have been 100% confident about not having any issues later on. It's not any more work, and there's no realistic possibility of major headaches as a result.

3) Why would you WANT to store in RAW to begin with? You're treating this as if it is the default solution and that any alternatives are the ones that have to prove themselves worthy. I don't see this as making any sense. The standardized common formats are the default solution for most compatible storage, and usage of a wacky RAW file is the behavior that begs justification. Once again, what is even one advantage of storing in RAW???



This seems analogous to me to somebody wanting to store all of their old documents on 5.95" x 7.7" vellum parchment, and then acting baffled and/or offended when somebody suggests that they might want to consider a more standardized format like A4 paper...

 

[480sparky]

..... Since there has so far still not been one mention of an actual advantage of storage in RAW formats as far as I can see in this thread, .......

How quickly they forget these days.

 

[480sparky]

... You're treating this as if it is the default solution ......

And your default solution is DNG. Can you give all of us any guarantee that if we all convert out raw files to DNG that in 10 years we'll still be able to edit them? Will you be willing to put that in writing, and compensate us all for any financial losses that can be proven?

Who's to say we all turn on our computers tomorrow and find out Adobe is dumping the DNG format for something better (after all, DNG isn't perfect)?

 

[Gavjenks]

Sparky, could you please actually quote the text you're referring to? That link just sends me to the OP.

Or did you intend to link to the OP? All he says about RAW is that it "protects against degradation" which is not an actual advantage compared to other lossless common formats like 24 bit PNGs, DNG, or TIFF with appropriate settings.

 

[480sparky]

Sparky, could you please actually quote the text you're referring to? That link just sends me to the OP.............

..............

Because someone may come along in 5 years and want a different edit than what I originally produced. Having access to the original raw data means I can re-edit the image, from scratch, to the customer's liking instead of mine. And their liking pays better............

 

[tecboy]

DNG is still a large file. Shoot low quality Jpeg. You will save tons of spaces on your hard drive.

 

[Gavjenks]

Granted DNG is more on the rug pulling end of the spectrum than jpeg, tiff, and png are. But I don't really advocate DNG as much as the others. I include it for completeness, but personally I would use a 16 bit tiff or PNG if you want lossless storage for future editing more so.

^
I actually advocated TIFF, JPEG, and PNG above and beyond DNG.

However, DNG is indeed completely safe. Because regardless of what happens to Adobe, DNG has been and is completely open source. Google "DNG SDK" at any time to get your own hands on the most current source code, download it, archive it (as hundreds of people and companies no doubt have).

If at any time DNG ceases to be open source, then I would immediately cease to suggest that you store new files in that format Your old ones would all still be safe, having been stored in a format that many independent people would have had source code data for. But for future images from that point onward, you would be wise to switch to PNG or TIFF or whatever is open source and common at the time instead. If that ever happens. It almost certainly won't ever happen, because it wouldn't make any sense at all for Adobe.

DNG also is based primarily on simple lossless old JPEG coding architecture, and is fairly trivial to convert to jpeg with a program you could write in like an hour or two if you knew what you were doing.

I would happily sell you DNG loss insurance, if you paid me premiums for it (me simply promising is not a valid contract, I'm afraid, since both sides need to receive something of value). How much would you like to pay per image, and what level of coverage and deductibles are you thinking of? I'm sure we can work something out!

Because someone may come along in 5 years and want a different edit than what I originally produced. Having access to the original raw data means I can re-edit the image, from scratch, to the customer's liking instead of mine. And their liking pays better............

That's an advantage over 8 bit JPEG. But not an advantage over PNG, TIFF, or DNGs, all of which are fully capable of holding every scrap of greater than 8-bit useful data from the original RAW, allowing full editing latitude in the future. And like I originally suggested, these latter formats are the ones you should use if you plan to ever edit the file again.

 

[Dao]

Just wondering, are you saving all your document in ODF format?

 

[Derrel]

SNIP>>

3) Why would you WANT to store in RAW to begin with? You're treating this as if it is the default solution and that any alternatives are the ones that have to prove themselves worthy. I don't see this as making any sense. The standardized common formats are the default solution for most compatible storage, and usage of a wacky RAW file is the behavior that begs justification. Once again, what is even one advantage of storing in RAW???

The recent announcement of the Adobe Creative Monthly Shakedown For Use of Your Files, AKA, the Adobe Creative Cloud-only Our Way Or The Highway monthly licensing mode for Photoshop not too long ago gave noted writer Thom Hogan cause to say that he had, perhaps, misjudged the value and wisdom of saving one's files using my normal procedure, the RAW+JPEG option. In light of Adobe's recent moves to force users to pay a monthly fee for the rest of their lives in order to access images created using Adobe Photoshop software...Thom Hogan arrived at the obvious conclusion I reached almost 10 full years ago: images in ANY kind of non-standardized, widely accessible file storage format, are not very useful. Under the Creative Cloud licensing model, once you stop paying the monthly extortion fee, your works created using the software are inaccessible to you.

The deeper I get into Adobe Lightroom as my main image handling device, the more apparent it becomes that the mere lists of changes and adjustments on my raw files are really not worth a damn--when encountered outside of the specific Adobe software that I have used to edit the files with. The mere "lists" of WB adjustments, exposure refinements, dodges and burns, and so on--ALL of that is basically USELESS in the real, wide-open world. Unless the images are adjusted, and then a high-quality "standard format" is used to actually create a self-contained file that has had the changed converted from list form to ACTUAL form, then the tens of thousands of images I've made over the last 18 months are...really just an investment in my time and effort. And because of that, the value of a RAW file really is, in one manner of speaking, lower than that of an adjusted,refined, perfected, 8-bit high quality JPEG file.

 

[Gavjenks]

Just wondering, are you saving all your document in ODF format?

No, and in fact I actually bought MS Word about a year ago specifically so that I could save my files reliably in the most common, standard format.

For some reason, open office, even when I told it to save in word format, caused issues where my colleagues were unable to effectively read tracked changes and comments. Perfect example of quirky proprietary formats having issues and at least partially failling as a storage medium, even when they supposedly promise compatibility.

 

[480sparky]

...........
That's an advantage over 8 bit JPEG. But not an advantage over PNG, TIFF, or DNGs, all of which are fully capable of holding every scrap of greater than 8-bit useful data from the original RAW, allowing full editing latitude in the future. And like I originally suggested, these latter formats are the ones you should use if you plan to ever edit the file again.

I think not. Converting to DNG converts just the image data.... not keywords, star ratings, metadata, EXIF, GPS data, focus points, camera settings...... etc etc etc.

Plus, DNG uses sidecar files. When I edit a .NEF, I save everything.... image data, all the editing steps, and all the above-mentions stuff......... in ONE file. No sidecars to get lost or misplaced.


If, sometime in the future, I can see the loss of editing .NEFs on the horizon, I'll do something about it. But until there's a problem, I don't see any reason to get all ants-in-the-pants about a solution.

 

[Gavjenks]

The value of a RAW file really is, in one manner of speaking, lower than that of an adjusted,refined, perfected, 8-bit high quality JPEG file.

In one sense, yes. In another sense, it is potentially worth less, since most edits are destructive. Both the original and the edited versions (or list of changes, as it may sometimes be) of any image both hold their own separate values inherently.

So you ideally want to store both some sort of original data, and some sort of editing or edited data, assuming space is effectively free (which is almost is).

But the most logical way of storing those two types of information with greatest ease of access and usage would be both in the same format. The most theoretically efficient method would be a single format that stores full bit depth original info, and then stores the edits in the form of minimally described changes on that original data. All in one very common, simple, efficient, well understood, open-source format.



(Optionally) Lossless JPEG standard being the obvious leading contender, which is exactly what DNG uses. If it were a little more popular, it would be the clear winner in every way. As is, I lean a little more toward plain JPEG, PNG, TIFF. But only a little bit of a lean. The DNG solution is more elegant, just needs more popularity to cement itself in place as the winner.

 

[Gavjenks]

...........
That's an advantage over 8 bit JPEG. But not an advantage over PNG, TIFF, or DNGs, all of which are fully capable of holding every scrap of greater than 8-bit useful data from the original RAW, allowing full editing latitude in the future. And like I originally suggested, these latter formats are the ones you should use if you plan to ever edit the file again.

I think not. Converting to DNG converts just the image data.... not keywords, star ratings, metadata, EXIF, GPS data, focus points, camera settings...... etc etc etc.

Plus, DNG uses sidecar files. When I edit a .NEF, I save everything.... image data, all the editing steps, and all the above-mentions stuff......... in ONE file. No sidecars to get lost or misplaced.


If, sometime in the future, I can see the loss of editing .NEFs on the horizon, I'll do something about it. But until there's a problem, I don't see any reason to get all ants-in-the-pants about a solution.

Uh nope. It stores all metadata. Open up a DNG in one of your adobe programs. In photoshop, for instance, you go to File-->File Info for all of your metadata needs Has EVERYTHING, right down to all of the menu settings in my camera at the time, etc. etc. "Advanced" tab and then "Camera Raw Properties" has most of the especially esoteric info. As you can tell from the ridiculous variety of tabs, it is also compatible with a couple of dozen other types of weird metadata standards if and when needed. Including video and audio stuff, mobile device specific meta data, GPS.

It even supports medical imaging patient and medical record metadata info!!

And yes, custom prose descriptions and star ratings, too. ("Description" tab)




I don't know what you're talking about with "sidecar" files. I've never had DNG converter create more than one file, no matter what settings I used. Maybe some weird settings create sidecars, but I have not encountered them, and they are not necessary for basic, no-frills full bit depth data and full metadata.

 

[Derrel]

Which is worth more when stranded on an island????

Option 1) A full,complete, exact, detailed materials list and the supplies needed to build a 38 foot sailboat. Let's call this the "The totally-awesome,amazing,extraordinary RAW file."

Option 2) A 38 foot boat, already built, ready to sail, and riding at anchor just off the shoreline. Let's refer to this as "That awful,destructive-edits-been-applied,woe-is-me, 8-bit JPEG POS file."

 

[tecboy]

Lightroom and photoshop are not 100% bug free programs. If these freeze while saving dng, there is no way I can recover improperly saved files. Raw is unedited, uncut, and less likely to currupt.