Slashdot Mirror
Adobe Releasing New Photo Format
salmonz writes "Toronto Star just posted a story that Adobe is releasing a new digital picture format; the Digital Negative Specification,or DNG.
" Supposed to be use in raw photo formats; without the lossyness of JPEG.
Are we supposed to hate Adobe?
GETPKG - Package Management for Slackware
Don't be silly, Adobe doesn't own PNG.
The kicker is, IF the camera companies decide to use it. Standards are only standard is they are used. My questions is, can existing cameras be updated to the new format, or will the manufacturers just want to sell the new ones.
--
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
This is to provide a unified RAW format for digital cameras. Right now all the manufacturers have their own formats and you cannot process them unless you have special software on your machine. I dont know why they mentioned JPEG because it is not a raw dcamera format.
love is just extroverted narcissism
PNG is not very good for photographic data. The compression phase also requires significant processing (zlib), so it would be impractical for a digital camera to PNG compress a multi-megabyte image on the field.
Maybe this has to do with JPEG patent issues....
A raw image is what directly comes out of the CCD. In fact it uses less storage than the bitmap that can be produced from it. But it's even better, as with it you can customize white balance and such after the picture has been taken. I use the raw images exclusively on my Canon S45 (it's a difficult feature to find). The problem appears to be in standardization.
-I am an elective eunuch.
People are comfortable with the idea of 'negatives'. If Adobe can make a market for this format, it will tie people into using thier tools (or thier tools will have an additional 'incentive')
I have read up on how using the raw format of the camera, and using the software on the PC you can use the additional information the camera would have thrown away, to do things such as save areas that would have been captured to dark otherwise.
Of course, each cameras format for RAW is basically that, RAW format, and this proposed file format should be nothing more than making sure each software can access it seamlessly.
So in fact, reading the article, it woudl seem like a good idea...
until you look at PDF. I just hope they don't try and put some tagging / watermarking / superflous junk into it.
*cough*
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
RTFA - Standard (free specs) raw format means you don't need to convert the stuff you camera puts on the memory card. "Digital Negative" is meant to reflect that it's a raw image straight off the lens - Lossless unlike JPEG
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
Well, when you _read_ the article, you see that they're talking about a loss less format, versus JPEG which is lossy. Think of it as FLAC for pictures.
The information they're talking about retaining is, as the article puts it, before camera processing to retain truer to the capture image.
I suppose the benefit would be that (ideally) when all cameras support the new format, there will no longer be a need to install and use your camera's proprietary software package just to be able to access your images.
Does this format offer anything that couldn't be done with PNG?
They key to this format is that it's in a format that's given off by the CCD and CMOS sensors, not in a processed colorspace of any kind (like RGB)
What really concerns me, however, is this:
which Adobe is making available for free
Is this a free-to-all? Or just free-to-camera-developers so we can force user to use photoshop or license from Adobe?
A conventional 24-bit image file will have eight bits for red, green and blue for each pixel. But very often digital cameras don't have separate sensors for each pixel; they have alternating R G B sensors in a kind of chessboard arrangement, and then interpolate the missing values. This interpolation happens when you go from raw format to the final output, and it can be done by the camera itself or by a photo manipulation program on a PC.
A raw format file, while still storing all the data that has come off the image sensor, can be one third the size of a PNG because it knows that the first pixel has only red channel information, the second only green and so on.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Well, if compression processing is an issue, use a low compression - gzip -1 is a LOT faster than gzip -9; and if DNG is less resource intensive then my guess would be that its compression is also on the "low" end...
But could you clarify what makes PNG *not* good for photography? Also - isn't there some other format that might be better suited and is already present?
What about using the new version of JPEG, for 'digital negatives'?
There are no royalties, no licencing, it has 2x to 5x the compression efficiency, and it's inherently multiresolutional. One file, all resolutions, no reprocessing.. It supports hundreds of component layers, data embedding, lossless encoding..
So.. why would you use some new proprietary Adobe format?
RAW is the way to go for professional photo stuff. From my Nikon D70 I can get RAW format pics which contain lots of extra info about the camera settings and ALL the digital data from the camera, not just what the JPG compressor decided I should have. This is critical for later processing of the photos. Without this extra data, lots of detail in the shadows and highlight regions will likely be lost. I for one want to choose what data to keep and what to throw away, I don't want a compression algorithm making that decision. But, here's the catch... 98% of the people won't give a rat's ass about this. This kind of format is for professional photographers or serious enthusiasts. So for most people, it means nothing, but for me it may be another great format to use since I already use all the Adobe products.
this makes dealing with RAW files less of PITA. However, has anyone other that Adobe been involved in the spec's creation, or is this just another case of the brilliant minds a [insert company/organization name] coming up with the "ultimate" solution to their corner of the world's problems, without really considering the broader context.
I await more information and a working open-source library...wake me when it's ready.
This format is not about replacing PNG, and no PNG does not provide the capabilities to do what DNG is about.
DNG is about unifying the mess of "RAW" formats - camera-specific proprietary file formats containing raw dumps of unprocessed sensor information and shot metadata.
Furthermore, DNG is not immediately about getting camera manufacturers to use it themselves - though that would be the ideal. DNG is a bridge format - something you can convert all of your RAW files to for the purposes of long-term preservation/storage. It is open and documented, and based on TIFF so there are existing reader libraries that can handle the basic format (they will need extensions to do anything with it of course).
Adobe has provided DNG Converter which will enable anyone - even non-Adobe users - to benefit from the ongoing R&D Adobe does to support the variety of RAW formats out there. This will simplify the task of building quality RAW converters by allowing small developers to focus on excellent RAW processing and not have to exert to support the many camera RAW formats out there.
Sorry, I just woke up so I'm not going to touch on everything - but this is a major announcement whose importance will become more clear in time.
Here's another article.
Yet it will be up to camera makers to support the specification, which Adobe is making available for free.
So it looks like they aren't charging for it. And if everyone can standardize on a single format, that'd make EVERYONE'S life a lot easier.
A few remain behind and write about why they don't use the new "standard". They get branded "communists". Historical revisionism takes over, and the creators of the useless file format standard get lauded as "innovators". Anyone who complains is tagged as "just jealous".
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Adobe Systems has today announced a new unified public format for raw digital camera files and a free software tool, Adobe DNG Converter, for translating raw photo formats into the new .DNG format, which is
compliant with the Digital Negative Specification. There is no standard
format for raw files, which vary between manufacturers and cameras.
Digital Negative Specification will introduce a single format that can
store information from a diverse range of cameras. An updated Adobe RAW
File Converter adds support for DNG as well as several other cameras.
Click here for more information on Adobe DNG
Press Release:
Adobe Unifies Raw Photo Formats with Introduction of Digital Negative Specification Free Converter Tool Kick Starts New Digital Negative File Format by Translating Raw Formats into Easy-to-Use, Archive-Ready Files
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Sept. 27, 2004 -- Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today introduced the Digital Negative Specification, a new unified public format for raw digital camera files. The company also launched a free software tool, Adobe DNG Converter, which translates many of today's popular raw photo formats into the new .DNG file format, compliant with the Digital Negative
Specification.
Raw files, which contain the original information captured by a camera sensor prior to any in-camera processing, have become popular due to their promise of greater flexibility and image quality. Until today there has been no standard format for these files, which vary between manufacturers and individual cameras. The Digital Negative Specification solves this problem by introducing a single format that can store information from a diverse range of cameras. Technology leaders, major customers, and professional photographers today also endorsed the new specification (see separate quote sheet).
"Professional photographers and other creative professionals are moving to raw camera workflows because of the outstanding creative control they get over digital images," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president of Digital Imaging and Digital Video products at Adobe. "However, clients and publishers have difficulty working with disparate raw file formats and nobody can be sure that today's raw formats will be supported ten years from now. Adobe customers asked us to work on a unified, public format for raw files and that's what we've delivered with the new Digital Negative Specification."
Serious photographers want to store raw files in long-term image archives, because -- unlike standard JPEG's and TIFF's -- these files represent the pure, unaltered capture. Current raw formats are unsuitable for archiving because they are generally undocumented and tied to specific camera models, introducing the risk that the format will not be supported over time. The unified and publicly documented Digital Negative Specification ensures that digital photographs can be preserved in original form for future generations. The new .DNG file format also simplifies digital imaging workflows for
creative professionals who today have to juggle multiple file formats
as they bring raw images, from different cameras, into print and
cross-media publishing projects.
New Specification Built on Existing Standards
The Digital Negative Specification is based on the TIFF EP format, an accepted standard, and already the basis of many proprietary raw formats. The power of .DNG format lies in a set of metadata that must
be included in the file to describe key details about the camera and
settings. .DNG-compliant software and hardware can adapt on the fly to
handle new cameras as they are in
Yes, wonder wonder why camera manufacturers just don't throw in libpng rather than use some new format that is small and simple.
It's very simple: People who deal with content creation (that is, content created for commercial consumption), especially print, don't like JPGs or other lossy formats. PNG, being an indexed-color format, is not the end-all of graphics formats, slashdot ranting aside. Most designers want TIFF files (and PCD wil do, in a pinch). JPGs, no matter the quality, tend to have a nasty habit of exhibiting some noise in their output. That's totally unacceptable for print.
And, again, PNG is totally the wrong format for this. You'd be taking a huge hit upfront in terms of indexing -- or your images would be outrageously huge.
How DNG differs from TIFF, I don't know. I would have thought TIFF would be the obvious answer. (TIFF, for those who don't know, aren't compressed but can be losslessly compressed)
I am not Herbert.
"Like a standard lossy format with support for alpha?"
Because it's nigh on impossible to do? Lossy formats call for some compromise on quality, and alpha gradients wouldn't be that easy to translate.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
I dont know why they mentioned JPEG because it is not a raw dcamera format.
They mention JPEG because that's usually the options you have on a digital camera; proprietary RAW format, which Adobe is trying to standardize, or standardized JPEG, which professionals don't want to use because it's lossy.
It's a good idea, as long as the standard isn't "owned" by Adobe.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Actually no it's not useless, this would be very useful, especially if the format is open. Remember Adobe also cerated PDF - they know about making money from open standards.
You see proper digital cameras - especially the ones that cost $10,000 and are used by photojournalists and the like all let you save the image in raw format - that's a copy of the actual data that was captured before any processing. By doing so, you can take the image home and adjust it - white balance, satuaration and everything else - with photoshop et al. Rather than letting the camera make the adjustment and possibly messing things up, you know you still have the raw data so you can undo your changes. Trouble is, all the camera manufacturers ahev their own standard for raw data, so to get it into photoshop, the gimp or whatever you want to use, you must first run the raw image through software provided by your camera manufacturer - and you can bet that software won't run on Linux.
So this is good, 1 because it encourages interoperability and 2 because it further opens up proper image processing to Linux users.
Postscript is probably subject to more controls than PDF. Take the use of Display PDF rather than Display Postscript in OSX for example - Ars Technica mentions the licensing fees that Apple would have had to pay. Surely we're better off with pdf than gzipped ps?
Yes. Currently, CCDs and CMOSs support 12-16bits/channel. That can be encompassed in PNG's 48bits/pixel. However, newer generation gear already samples at 18-24bits/channel of RGB, which superscedes what PNG can do.
Plus, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't PNG assume all pixels have RGB information? Oftentimes this isn't the case in digital cameras (unless you're using a Foveon sensor). Google "Bayer Pattern" if you're interested.
The article is light on details, but I don't think Adobe is aiming this solely towards digital cameras (even expensive digital backs for medium-format cameras), but also towards medical imaging and what not. There is a reason why ImageMagick can be built with 24bits/channel and up.
The real question then becomes why don't digital cameras use PNG instead of their own version of a RAW format. Adobe is stepping in to try and consolidate the different formats to simplify importing into Photoshop. I can easily see a couple of questions from a hardware perspective.
What is the time cost of compressing to PNG versus directly writing a larger uncompressed RAW file?
If compression is too costly, can a simple form of run length encoding be used instead of PNG?
Does the flash storage medium have an effect on which file formats are more efficient to write (SD vs. compact flash)? If so, what compromises must be made?
Camera makers are choosing a format based on other considerations than software compatibility. Where do the current formats fail to meet their needs?
DMCA - Chilling free speech since 1998.
A good reason for it is that currently the only commonly used lossless image format (BMP) is uncompressed and enormous.
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
Adobe supplies castrated versions of photoshop which get shipped with some digital camera's. They are in a very good position to pull this off.
Is this a free-to-all? Or just free-to-camera-developers so we can force user to use photoshop or license from Adobe?
Looking at Adobe's history on postscript & pdf format I guess we should reasonably expect this new format's spec to be free (as beer) and usable by everyone
The connotations of 'Negative' are purely historical and bear no relevance to modern (i.e. digital ) photography.
The images stored in ths format will not be negatives (i.e. inverted) anyway, contrary to what the name means and suggests.
What's wrong with TIFF?
It's lossless, high end cameras already support it, and it's the gold standard for lossless transfer of bitmap data already.
So why make something new when TIFF does the job?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
I'm going to vomit. That's liks asking "what's wrong with the mini cooper" in an aritcle about jumbo jets. PNG is not what this format is designed to work with, RAW data from the camera is. RTFA before jumping on the open source bandwagon and screaming that everything should be PNG because you saw a blurb about it on ESR's website. Fuck, I like open source and masturbate every time I see a linux login prompt, and you zealots are starting to piss me off.
Dong?
The Picture Outline Object format, or .POO
Maybe, but you appear to be more on top of things than all the people who didn't bother to do a shred of research before accusing Adobe of just inventing a new format for no other reason than to control the market. I wouldn't put that kind of tactic past them, but people should at least do some verification for their evil market domination theories....
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
PNG was designed as a replacment for the GIF format, it's not designed for storing photos, PNG is good for images with large areas of contiguous colour and sharp edges such as cartoons and logos. PNG can handle true colour fine, but in my experience it creates massive file sizes for photos, which you don't want in an environment where space is extremely limited such as on a digital camera.
Adobe has put up a page regarding the new format on their site. But for those who couldn't be bothered to read the original article and are posting questions like, "Why bother..."
There are currently two image formats in wide use for high-end cameras. RAW is the format of choice for people who demand high-quality shots with no compression artifacts. Unfortunately, different camera manufacturers have implemented their RAW encoding differently, which means that two cameras that can save to RAW don't necessarily use the same format. As a result, professionals often have to convert between their vendor's RAW format, and that used by their software.
The other format is good old JPEG, but as you probably know, JPEG is a lossy compression algorithim, making it unsuitable for those who demand a certain level of quality in the shots as captured.
The new format is designed to provide the same advantages of RAW, without the cross-vendor incompatibilities. Adobe is calling it "a publicly documented and readily available specification," although I didn't see any kind of license data around the download of the spec (which is on the Adobe page listed above).
Lossy formats call for some compromise on quality, and alpha gradients wouldn't be that easy to translate.
Good point. However, there is no reason it should be impossible to compress the alpha channel lossless and apply lossy compression to the rest of the image.
DNG *is* TIFF.
First, PNG is not always indexed. However, it would have required massive extensions to PNG to turn it into something capable of being DNG, and TIFF is already well placed for extension (TIFF is a container format - most people think of it as a simple image format, but it is very flexible and capable of adaptation).
TIFF supports a huge variety of compression modes, including uncompressed, JPEG, LZW, and ZIP, and a variety of color modes.
DNG is an extension to TIFF, to allow the additional properties of a RAW to be expressed without losing the efficiencies of RAW (linear data, typically one color channel per pixel until processing). Just as a for instance - you can take your DNG into most any TIFF reader today and it will at the very least be able to read the preview embedded in the DNG without any mods to your TIFF library.
Because the TIFF patent is probably about to run out!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Did you even RTFA? Oh, I forgot.. this is slashdot.
.DNG file format into digital cameras, printers, and software products.
For more details about this announcement, go to dpreview.com
Adobe announces new format for raw files
The Digital Negative Specification is being posted to the Adobe Web site free of any legal restrictions or royalties, enabling integration of the
The JPEG standard includes a lossless option too; professionals don't want to use JPEG because lossless JPEG is inefficient, not because it doesn't exist.
The idea for this spec is not to replace JPEG or PNG. Higher-end digital cameras have a mechanism by which to save images in a lossless format. It used to be this was generally TIFF, but when you're looking at six megapixel images, TIFF nets you pretty monstrous file sizes.
Most digital camera manufacturers came up with their own lossless compression. And, of course, they're all incompatible.
Now, why Adobe? If you're shooting high-end digital photography where you care about it being lossless, and you're doing post-production on your images, what are you using? Adobe Photoshop. So instead of having to have input routines for Photoshop for seventeen different specs, Adobe would much rather the manufacturers have one standard-- can't say as I blame them. Standards are good.
Now, most of us will still keep our cameras set to shoot JPEG, but the folks who do this stuff for a living, this will benefit them. This isn't a case of trying to create a new standard to replace one that already exists to try to get market dominance, a-la Microsoft (or, heck, Acrobat/pdf for the most part...), this is a new standard to make up for the fact that there simply isn't one in this segment and there desperately needs to be.
Now, this doesn't mean Adobe won't leverage the spec and make piles of cash off of it, but at least in this case they're actually inventing something that people need instead of trying to push something on them that they don't.
There is a lossless version of JPEG, nobody seems to consider it an option.
In fact, while on that tangent, what about lossless JPEG2000? I would imagine that a lossless wavelet-based codec would be the most efficient (best compression) lossless codec you could get.
And, in PNG, the G stands for Graphics; Portable Network Graphics. I know it's a stretch, but possibly Adobe meant the G in DNG to also stand for Graphics. I know it seems to have nothing to do with the file format at hand, but it's possible. I mean, they made PDF, which has nothing to do with Firearms even though the ATF's F stands for that. It's just an Adobe thing, I guess.
It's an extension to TIFF to support, in a standardized way, the many unique variables that go into a RAW file. No existing specification could capture this range of unique data encoding and metadata without extension - DNG as TIFF was the logical choice for many reasons.
This is not processing RAW into a TIFF - you can do that now with many tools. This is repackaging a RAW file into a new, universal RAW - this should open the RAW processor world to a new level of competition (as the greatest amount of R&D time was always wasted on reverse engineering RAW formats - something Adobe is now doing for you with DNG Converter).
Let me put it another way:
How is adobe providing this? Sure, it's for free, but what exactly does that mean? Of all groups of people, the slashdot crowd should know better than to get taken in by the whole free thing.
Example: You need a file format. I have one, that I own patents on. I say you can use it for free, you agree. Then, later, I decide I want to start charging for it. As we did not have a previous agreement that includes this circumstance, you are up shit creek.
So no, I do not trust this, especially from adobe, until I see the fine print.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Adobe already has a page on DNG. Its is a free format and the specs are right there on the page, so GIMP won't lose out.
I believe the format is a) to save Adobe money long term (they don't have to support yet another specific sensor) and b) reduce headaches and complaints from the user. We'll just see how the camera companies and digital photography professionals react.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
A few years ago it was unpractical to decode MPEG1-Layer 3 in realtime. A blink of an eye later it was merely unpractical to encode in realtime. Now we have ~100g devices that can decode and encode in realtime for hours on end.
If they (Adobe) don't want any kind of compression then, as we all know, TARGA would do.
If they in fact wants to use compression, but to use different models from the ones provided in the PNG standard, wouldn't it make more sense to extend PNG with said models?
Belief is the currency of delusion.
My Guess is Graphic ala PNG
Like a standard lossy format with support for alpha?
JPEG supports arbitrary channels. If you really want it, you could add an alpha channel to a JPEG stream and use that. The reason we don't have it is because there's very little point.
Lack of more than 8 bits per color channel? Lack of metadata relating to the shot (camera settings etc especially)?
As many other posters pointed out there can be quite a bit of additional data stored in the RAW format from many high end cameras, the problem is accessing that data later when u may not have the camera (ie, proper RAW driver) available.
Quote from ???: "There are lies; there are damn lies; and there are benchmarks."
Except that they don't control DNG either. It was released "for free" (legally & royalty-wise). So it's either NIH, stupidity, or something we don't get.
so they made a new lossless image format. Don't we already have lossless image formats like tiff?
No, they made a set of TIFF extensions that are designed to store the raw CCD data produced by the camera. Read Adobe's DNG primer: in essence, camera CCDs are *not* full colour, but have a mix of pixels filtered for R, G and B and the camera processes these scattered R, G and B values into a colour image. DNG stores the raw CCD data before the colours are combined.
It seems to me that this is just adobe re-inventing the wheel into a new proprietary wheel.
The spec (also on Adobe's DNG site anounces itself as "non-proprietary". The improvement is providing a common format for camera manufacturers to use.
Because TIFF doesn't do the job. This isn't another direct display format. It's a raw format. For example, the raw files from my Nikon equipment require processing before they can be displayed (FWIW, Photoshop CS already supports the nikon raw format - .NEF). Raw format files are nothing more than the the CCD saw....it doesn't take into account the dot screen or any filtering that is integral to the CCD...your processing software (whether it's in the camera or 3rd party like Nikon View, Bibble, or something else) needs to apply color correction and actually interpolate the sensors on the CCD into the correct colors.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
For that matter, why aren't we seeing J2k everywhere? It looks like a great format.
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
I don't understand it either, but RTFA - they released it with no legal or financial strings attached.
This DNG is apparently TIFF-EP with metadata added. The metadata content seems quite reasonable and contain information about the camera which is basically irrelevant in any other context.
The spec. appears to be unencumbered. Although there aren't bright yellow "FREE FOR ALL TO USE!" disclaimers, it does not bear any mention of a patent and it does state that the spec. is "free". Since it would be in Adobe's interest (as a market leader in photo editting software) to minimize writing kludgy compatibility code in the future, I don't see why anyone should assume that this offer is being made "in bad faith".
Oh yes, there might not be all of this "OMG PATENTZ!" hysteria, if the posting had included this link to the Adobe site, which features a pdf of the specification itself.
Even more happily, the pdf was a simple one & rendered promptly under xpdf/gs.
Because my DSLR produces ~10MB RAW files with 12bit/hue colour resolution which convert into ~36MB 16bit/hue colour resolution TIFFs? Or how about that those TIFFs only have a fraction of the flexibility offered by the RAW versions in post processing. It should be obvious that you need 3x the storage space, but if you've got used to rattling off shots at a rate of several a second, expect that to get slashed too.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
> But very often digital cameras don't have separate sensors for each pixel; they have alternating R G B sensors in a kind of chessboard arrangement, and then interpolate the missing values.
Couple of notes...
That chessboard layout is called a Color Filter Array, usually arranged in a Bayer Pattern.
Digital cameras these days are 10 bit in RAW mode.
And some even have 4 color sensors.
dpreview is THE site for camera buffs, much the same way avsforum is for us audio & vidio philes. Now if only I could find sites for other categories....
--
"Geometry is frozen music"
- Pythagoras
PNG is not very good for photographic data
You can't just say that and not offer reasons.
The compression phase also requires significant processing (zlib)
Not much compared with the computation required for JPEG compression.
PNG is *not* just a palette color format; it fully supports truecolor, all the way up to 64 bits (red, green, blue and alpha at 16 bits each) if you really want it. There are still good reasons for DNG:
* No compression at all in DNG, versus time-consuming zlib compression in PNG that might be too much to ask of a handheld device.
* As others have pointed out, DNG "knows" when a single camera pixel really only updates red, green or blue and wouldn't waste space storing all three.
Check out the Apostrophe open-source CMS: http://www.apostrophenow.com/
Does that mean future digital cameras might* not have TIFF support?
All your JPEGS are belong to Adobe?
Something about Soviet Russia, im not sure how it goes, but your mother was a whore.
How about you don't tell us photographers what we do/don't need?
We DO need a standard raw file format. Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Sigma, etc all have their own raw formats. This makes developing good raw-file handling software difficult, because you either have to dump lots of time into supporting several file formats, or settle for a small piece of the market and only support certain brands. It's also a royal pain in the ass for media companies who, to maintain some order in their workflow, "standardize" (fancy word for "get locked into") on one camera system maker.
Adobe is the defacto tool for processing digital images; nothing comes close. Knoll and his team have, after several years, picked up quite a bit of experience with what works and what doesn't; what customers need and what they don't, etc. Adobe's status puts them in the position to push a common raw format, and it's likely many of the companies that make decoders will add it in; it will be a case of software support before hardware support no doubt- but eventually camera makers will grumble a little and add it in. They've long since given up trying to make money off their raw format decoders.
Most media companies will no doubt be thrilled, because now they can handle Joe Shmoe's D4X raw file just like they handle Bob Smith's 1Ds Mark 3 raw file, save maybe for some image size differences.
By the way- RAW = Canon, NRF(I think?) = Nikon. Confusing that the style of file is called "raw" but Canon has a format called RAW. Please use capitalization to distinguish between the Canon format and the general style of compressed image.
Please help metamoderate.
Digital Negative Specification...shouldn't that be DNS?
Hmmm.
Since many people here are not photographers and don't deal with RAW formats, let me but it in simple terms.
.NEF files. Canon uses .CRW and .CR2.
.CR2 format. However, none of my existing programs could work with it, even though it is similar to the .CR2 format found in the Canon 1D Mark II. There was a hack for Photoshop CS that worked, but the "As Shot" white balance was wrong. Adobe released the new Camera Raw plug-in today and it works good.
Each camera has there own RAW format. Read each Manufacturer has their own proprietary format. Some even have multiple formats. For example, Nikon uses
Photographers work with RAW because it is lossless and can be recorded with 16 or 12 bits of data per pixel, where JPEG and TIFFS tend to be 8 bits per pixel. Also, as mentioned already, settings such as white balance, tone, sharpness, color, and even exposure compensation can be applied after the shot was taken.
BTW: Post-Processing is a HUGE part of Digital SLR photography for those that are only used to the Point and Shoot cameras.
Now for why it is a good thing to have a unified RAW format. I recently purchased the Canon 20D. It included a new
With each new camera release, all software writers will have to update their program if they want to support the new cameras. At the rate at which DSLR's seem to be announced this could be a huge pain. If a company like Adobe could convince the market the their DNG file is the way to go, your software would only have to work with that format.
Hell yes. Unlike with a raster image such as JPEG or PNG, the data from a camera sensor is most likely a Bayer array - alternating lines of Red/Green and Blue/Green sensors, rather than RGB triplets, so it's not so much RGB, as RGBG. (There are some varients/exceptions in the in sensors from Foveon, Fuji and Sony). There is also a lot of data specific to the exposure; duration, ISO, lens details, etc. which would need to be applied in camera before a raster image could be produced. With RAW, you can apply these settings after the event in Photoshop or whatever. Exposed the sky correctly, but got the ground off by a stop? No problem; "develop" the RAW twice and use the sky from one shot and the ground from the other for a much better result than "enhancing" the ground in an image editor.
Yes, you could have most of this with a tweaked version of PNG and a bunch of ID3 type tags (and maybe that's exactly what Adobe has done, I haven't looked at the file format yet). The main benefit though is to make it very easy for data exchange and solve the nightmare situation whereby each new sensor has it's own RAW format. The state of play at the moment is a nightmare for vendors like Adobe who need to update their software for almost every new high-end camera release. Likewise for the makers of those "digital photo stations" that are cropping up like Starbucks, or their little brethren; the printers you can plug a camera into directly. With a standard like DNG to support you gain the much larger colour gamut of the RAW format and more flexibility in tweaking the image for a better print.
Anyway, you can read the actual Adobe press release, or download a free (beer) DNG converter here to find out a little more.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Granted they can't call it DNS, but why do they have to say Digital Negative Specification, or DNG. Shouldn't it technically be Digital NeGative specification.
http://www.brentcastle.com
I would say that upwards of 90% of the magazines, books, and other printed materials use JPEG images in their books for ALL non-photographic images.
photographs are usually TIFF documents, but we've ran accross many customers who supply all of their graphics and photos as high-res JPEGs
Adobe lockin v.s. Quark? you obviously don't work in a printing house. Quark is basicly the only tool used in creating anything for print. Quark can create Adobe PDF Files without issues from any other software we use.
Now that i think about it, most of the software we use is based on Open standards from Adobe (Postscript, DSC(Document Structuring Convention), PDF, PJTF, JDF)
YIDIWIP (Yes I Do Work In Prepress)
I follow the SDK and GDN principles.. Spelling Dont Kount, Grammer Dont Neither
Yeah, well, color me shocked. People on Slashdot jumping the gun? Spouting off on issues they haven't researched? Unheard of.
Not a web display format.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
PNG is also a container format. You can add whatever data chunks you like to it. They could easily have defined a raw data chunk for the PNG format.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
This is not a format for use on the web. This is a format for storage of raw, as-yet-unpublished images that you want to edit with all of the information from the camera 100% intact. So I hope we don't start seeing them in img elements. That would be as bad as using bmps on the web (which browsers allow... sigh).
Check out the Apostrophe open-source CMS: http://www.apostrophenow.com/
From Adobe's page:
/. crowd to actually RTFA before ranting about open vs closed source
Digital Negative (DNG) specification Download the specification, which describes a nonproprietary file format for storing camera raw files that can be used by a wide range of hardware and software vendors.
So I don't see why everyone immedietly starts complaining about this being a closed format. Oh well, I guess I should know better than to expect the
>If compression is too costly, can a simple form of run length encoding be used instead of PNG?
Not really. If there aren't a lot of pixels with the same colour next to each other, RLE will not compress anything. RLE works best on 256 color bitmaps with big surfaces of the exact same colour.
Hardly anything like a 24 or more bit photo of the real world.
There are actual lossless implementations outside of the research community?
I thought that died The Death Of A Thousand Software Patents :-\
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Having to deal with multiple RAW implementations, this will be a lifesaver. Hope it takes off.
BTW, does anyone have a download link/torrent for the Adobe DNG Converter and Camera Raw 2.3 update? I tried to register, but all the site does is throw up errors.
Thanks,
CD
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
something is out on versiontracker http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 18433
It says: Digital Negative Specification, or DNG...
The "G" stands for "Specification". [;-)]
They haven't sued GIMP
They still support Apple
They don't suck up to Microsoft
When one of those changes, by all means let slip the dogs of war. Or is that the Gnus of war? I can't remember THAT? Dogs or Gnus, people?
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
There are really two factors affecting RAW formats:
1) The camera-specific mosaicing and bit-depth of their "raw" linear image data; this would not be easily done in any format without major modifications
2) The critical metadata needed in order to develop that image data into a useful digital photograph
DNG addresses both of these issues by standardizing the storage and description of RAW data, and by requiring a base level of metadata necessary for working with them without additional camera-specific knowledge on the software's part.
Adobe is very smart about this. It's based on TIFF, so it's a pretty easy to read standard as there are a lot of libraries to read TIFF, leaving the only hard part being the processing of the pixel data.
Furthermore (and this is the smart part) they have made a converter based on thier own RAW reading software, that converts your current RAW into the new format. Now I am a little leary about this as I want to make sure the converter really captures all of the metadata I care about - but if you are into Photoshop start to finish this is great as it gives you one file you can work with and store metadata changes (like RAW conversion properties). Under the current system you can read in RAW files but Photoshop has to keep track of processing selections you've made (like white balance or color adjustments) in a seperate location as it cannot write data back to most RAW files.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
professionals don't want to use JPEG because lossless JPEG is inefficient, not because it doesn't exist.
Photoshop and PSP allow you to save files as lossless JPEG, but the only camera I know is the newest Canon digital SLRs. Most other professional digital SLRs and prosumer cameras only store proprietary RAW, then some level of lossy JPEG.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
And if I did do such a think, would it open in FireFox or exploder?
No new file format will work without the software being modified to support it. However, if you were to modify JPEG in this fashion you would be more likely to gain support than inventing yet another specialised file format, because for applications that use IJG jpeglib (or have similar levels of abstraction in their own JPEG handling code) and already understand alpha channels, it would probably be little more than 10-50 lines of code to support this addition.
I see a lot of posts asking why bother. What I'm more concerned about is how this could work ?
Ignoring the differences in the various RAW formats between manufacturers, what about differences between two cameras from the same manufacturer ? What causes that and would DNG cater for it ?
As an example, look at the Nikon D70 and the D100. Adobe had full support for the D100 with their ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) plugin. But when the D70 came out, we waited months for true compatibility with Photoshop (yeah, yeah, you could use the nikon supplied plugin, but that was worthless really).
I'm guessing Adobe want this because in order to keep selling Photoshop to photographers, they have to keep amending ACR everytime a new camera comes out. But can a fixed standard cater for everything that Canon and Nikon will be putting in their cameras, and want to store in the RAW files 2 years from now ?
The parent post makes a lot of sense. The article doesn't say the advantages of the format, as over, uh, PNG. It doesn't say what is so special about it and whether we have to pay to use it and thus keep it out of legitimate OSS. (LAME is the best example of category, since it deals with MP3, it's binaries cannot be included in distros that follow the law.)
I dont' know why the parent post got knocked down so much. Perhaps the mods are trying to get him a coveted +5 Troll?
Oh, well. I'm going to get modded down now, aren't I?
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
So they're gonna be pronounced as "Ding" I'm assuming, consider the possibilities:
.. Dude, is that a ding of my dong? HTF DID YOU GET THAT?"
... I shall stop here
Dude2: "Hey Dude, I have a funny picture to send you"
Dude1: "Dude, wait, I have dialup and it's gonna take forever"
Dude2: "No way dude, it's a ding, it'll only take a moment, here it comes"
Dude1: "Okay, got it
I'm sorry about being a jerk and whining about my comment being down-rated, but as there already are a couple of comments here that explain why it is utterly impossible to use PNG as it is as a 'raw' format, could anyone please tell me what is so wrong about pointing out a couple of vital features that PNG misses? What is it that I failed to realise? Am I supposed to hate Adobe for putting out their press release in Acrobat 6 format, or for not making their tool completely free (open source)? Or is it that (because I didn't know that for sure 10 minutes ago) I didn't state that as you can add data in any not-yet-specified format to a PNG file, you could essentially embed a DNG into a PNG (just like you can in fact out a PNG inside a DNG)?
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
Adobe has posted a DNG Primer online, describing some slightly technical details. Here are the key points from the document that helps to understand what makes the format useful:
Image format: DNG is based on the TIFF-EP format, but DNG specifies the inclusion of a number of additional tags that let the converter properly interpret the raw file.
Metadata: DNG enables inclusion of metadata in EXIF, IPTC, and XMP formats.
Compression: Files can be stored as uncompressed (either bit-packed or padded to 16-bits per pixel) or with lossless JPEG compression.
Color space: DNG fles are stored in a linear, nonwhite-balanced color space (usually the native color space of the camera).
Interpolation: DNG enables file storage either in mosaic (CFA) form or in demosaiced form. Generally, a mosaiced file is preferred because it represents the original data the sensor captured and enables maximum conversion fexibility. It is also smaller than a demosaiced file. In some instances, however, saving a demosaiced file can improve compatibility, particularly if the camera sensor contains an unusual mosaic pattern that all converters do not support.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When you shoot in JPEG and even in TIFF with any current camera the internal processor applies white balance, color, contrast, sharpening and other algorithms to the data and saves it in the chosen format, typically JPEG at anywhere from a 1:2 to 1:8 loss compression ratio.
This is great for point, click, print. But for hobbyist and professional photographers this eliminates a lot of the post-shot production that can be done to the image later, even if it's a TIFF file. With a RAW image format you can apply those effects afterward, unapply them and generally tweak the output. My Nikon came with some software that allows me to set the white balance using the same algorithm the camera would do internally if I shot JPEG. But with the in-camera option if I don't like the results, tough. Sure, I can tweak it later in Photoshop but I can't fundamentally alter the effect. This is particularly frustrating for effects like white balance and sharpening. Having the RAW format, also known as the "digital negative", gives the photographer much more flexibility.
Why do we need a universal file format? Because every camera manufacturer out there has a different one that programmers have to figure out and photographers have to put up with (not that professionals change kit all that often). With Photoshop CS Adobe helped photographers out by putting in an excellent RAW reader but someone at a Adobe has to keep up with all these specifications. If all the camera manufacturers would adopt ONE format then Adobe AND open source developers could focus their time on the important business of digital photography -- producing excellent final photos.
Another benefit of the RAW format hinted above is that for programs like the GIMP developers waste a lot of time trying to reverse engineer these formats. As you can imagine a lot of the camera manufacturers aren't out there sharing the love with their specifications. The one format that's been best reverse engineered is the Canon RAW format with varying levels of success going down from there for Nikon, Minolta et al.
Lastly, let's not forget the benefit of having a common format for long-term archival and retrieval. Anybody out there have any binary files they can't get into any more? A common RAW format will reduce the chances of being orphaned with files you can't read.
In summary, then, this is a huge benefit for everyone as we can all focus on digital image production using a shared format and libraries and less on figuring all these formats out. The only question the article doesn't address is whether Adobe are releasing the format into the wild, as it were, or plan to setup a "toll" on it via patents.
I guess it's the old hen & egg problem: As long as nobody uses them, support in software (primarily web browsers) will be at the best low priority. And as long as it's rarely supported in software, there's not much incentive to use it (why use an image format which almost nobody can display - provided that your favourite program can produce it, after all).
However, note the following on the JPEG2000 page you linked:
Especially note the last three words.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
In my opinion, working with the bare bones of their technology, ALL of it is well thought out, comprehensive and well explained.
They consider all of the difficulties of the problem domain. For instance, see how easy it is in PDF to create changes to an existing document, great for low powered CPUs. Just append the changed object and add on a new footer to the file. 95% of the file retained, which is a lot less expensive than re-generation of the whole file.
I think Adobe will do a good job here and post the specifications ala PDF and Postscript.
Not mentioned in the other comments is the run time hardware cost of saving this Digital Negative. I think Adobe will put effort into making this as friendly to integrated hardware capture as possible. A large portion of this has to be very little re-ordering of data as it comes from the CCD, as these usually require an in memory buffer. This fundamentally changes the nature of the format.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
PNG, being an indexed-color format, is not the end-all of graphics formats
No, it is not. It *can* do that, but PNG supports full 24-bit color, with 8 bit alpha. And possibly higher color depths if necessay (there's a byte or so in the header for bits-per-color).
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
This is a major boon. For those too lazy to read. It is 100% free and open for anyone to implement. Adobe is also providing a free converter.
This provides a common RAW format for cameras. This is not a png or jpg replacement, but a RAW replacement.
There are a number of third party RAW converters on the market right now. Many have limited camera support. You can bet they will quickly moving to support DNG. Which will instantly open up their usage to almost all current cameras.
With DNG support and Adobes converter you will soon be able to open just about any RAW image with any converter.
Even without camera output this is a benefit. As you can get one converter to support all your cameras.
You can archive all your RAWs as DNG and not have to worry that you kept all the software that came with the camera that generated the original RAW.
Camera support would be even better, but that may be slow as the manufactures may suffer "Not Invented Here" syndrome, or see value adds to their own format quirks.
Where is JPEG 2000 in all this? Are there any camera's supporting it yet? I'd prefer that over a new RAW format myself.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Yes, and we're also supposed to grumble about how Adobe is going to pull a submarine patent on this format to lock out the GIMP.
Gee, I actually read some details about the format, but I didn't know Adobe had patents around TIFF!
But I guess we're ALSO supposed to proceeed to post as fast as possible even though technical information is availiable that renders our post pointless.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But
Besides, questions of how this will affect the ability of open source people to use this format are valid. As has already been pointed out, submarine patents and restricted licensing are things people care about and want to know. Especially since a spate of recent technologies have tried to exclude such uses.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Digital cameras these days are 10 bit in RAW mode.
Most cameras that offer RAW mode have 12 bit sensors so you get 4096 possible levels at each sensor. The problem with JPG is that those 12 bits of information are squeezed into 256 levels of an 8 bit image. As a side effect, you end up needing to convert the RAW images to 16 bit TIFF files to edit without losing information. That means you need to use Photoshop or CinePaint to be able to edit the photo and see any benefit beyond the initial conversion from RAW to a raster format.
As an aside, why is it that CinePaint doesn't get more publicity? The Gimp is nice and all but CinePaint takes The Gimp and makes it a truly useful tool for professionals.
Free Mac Mini. Yes, I'm
You wouldn't see a sucessful format like this from any camera maker - for why should other camera makers trust another camera maker to define and control a format for digital negatives?
Adobe is probably the only company that has a chance of making this format stick and become popular. They are neutral and the format is based of TIFF, so is easy to implment and if enough people start converting RAW files into this format right away, you could easily see DNG becoming a standard option on cameras just like JPG and RAW are now (well, RAW is not so standard yet but it's becoming more widespread).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Who modded this up?
This format is about putting all RAW files under one (DNG) format.
Eg. Nikon has NEF, Canon has CRW, Olympus has xxx, adsf has yyy....
Isn't it better to have one open/standard format which all manufacturers support/endorse?
If you are skeptical read this.
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
Of course, with the spec being open, someone else can and likely will write modules for the older versions of Photoshop. This would be nice for those of us without the money or inclination to upgrade.
All in all, I can't see that it's terribly useful. The camera manufacturers are unlikely to switch thier native raw formats anytime soon. If you have a Nikon camera, you get the plugin or stand alone program to convert it to a .tiff. If you're crazy enough to have both Nikon and Canon (for example) cameras, you just have two plugins. Woop-de-do...
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Why don't they call this YAIF - for Yet Another Image Format. Really guys would the others not suffice?
tbc++
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
PNG is lossless. It's just not suitable in this application.
I read the article and I still don't see the point. How is a "raw" file format any better than any other lossless image format (like PNG or TIFF)?
Besides, just because Adobe isn't going to be making money off of the format directly doesn't mean that they didn't do this just to own it. I mean look at PDF. They don't make any money off the format or the viewer, but they bring in a good chunk of change on their PDF maker software
Sensor data is usually 12 bits per pixel, and only one color. This means a well designed RAW sensor format requires 1.5 bytes per pixel before compression... However each camera's sensor have different dimensions, different bayer filters, and possible other unique characteristics.
I support Adobe's move, but only if it is an open standard.
The format could be very sucessful even if a camera maker never adopts the format.
They key is how many phootgraphers will adopt the format, and convert exisitng RAW images to DNG.
The great thing is that DNG makes a great archival format for images as you don't loose RAW data, but your files are in an open format so that you can be sure in years to come you'll be able to read the data from the file even if support for your camera dies out.
So there are a number of good reasons why many photographers will adapt this format, and in turn why a lot of tool makers will probably support this.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Digital NeGative
Fuck, I like open source and masturbate every time I see a linux login prompt
:|
That can be very embarrassing in a lab environment.
To be completely correct, Canon has (at least) two raw formats:
*.CRW D30,D60,10D,1D,1Ds
*.CR2 1D mkII, 1Ds mkII, 20D
I don't know if the P&S use the same formats as the older SLRs, but I wouldn't be suprised if they were different.
If there is one good reason to use a standardized raw file format it is this; Whenever a manufacturer ships a new model, the software generally available is not able to convert that format for the first few weeks or months. This is a PITA if you have a workflow designed for your needs. (Camera makers ship the correct software, but that software is not nearly as good as PS CS or C1.)
In the immortal words of Socrates, who said; 'I drank what?'
In a nutshell, DNG proposes to do what TIFF did with image files, eliminate the need for proprietary file formats. That's the end of the similarities though.
Current RAW files are proprietary, Canon stores the data differently that Nikon for example. What they store is the same : raw CCD data, more importantly pre-processed CCD data. Bayer Interpolation and in camera processing have NOT taken place when the file is stored. Think of a RAW file as a negative, even before it's been developed.
Contrast this with TIFF (when I say TIFF i don't mean what it is capable of, but how it's used right now). TIFFs will have at least seen Bayer Interpolation and in camera processing (contrast, sharpness, white balance etc.) before storage. TIFF is a result of RAW data manipulation. In some ways, it's the negative after it's been developed, and in others, it's the pre-print image being tweaked.
Where DNG hopes to fit in is to create a unified RAW format. Hope it works out.
RAW files are used only *by* professionals and they really *do* know what digital photography is all about; so calling new digital format with archaic/absolete/wrong name which is aimed at professionals doesn't make sense.
"Negative" is only for the older folks who buy point-and-shoot cameras and don't really need DNG/RAW files.
-s
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
Guy1: Say cheese!
Guy2: Cheese!
Camera: click
Camera: Please wait while Adobe(tm) DNG(tm)(c) plugin loads.
Guy1: Uh...
Camera: thrash thrash chug chug chug thrash
Guy2: What's going on?
Camera: Thank you for downloading the free Adobe(tm) DNG(tm) plugin, for more exciting features please buy Adobe(tm) DNG(tm) Complete TODAY for only $399.95!
Guy2: Do I have to stay still for this?
Guy1: Uhh I think so. Okay it's done now. Wait a minute, why the hell isn't there a "save" option under "file"? Goddamnit!
I thought we were talking about RAW format as in normal computer imaging, with all the image data in the less-compressed form...
Thank you for pointing out my mistake...
This message doesn't need a sig
Because the raw format is the data straight off the CCD plus the camera settings.
Those two together let you play with the image composition before its set into any format. Don't like the exposure? Check what the exposure setting was, then recalculate the pixels based on the original source data. Bad aliasing effect? Try again from the raw data at a different resolution or different interpolation between the CCD sensors and pixels and see if you can save the picture.
The average user doesn't care about research, nor do they want to spend hours searching Google. Until you realize and accept that, you will never succeed on the desktop.
What has not been said here is:
1) Adobe does not have the support of any major camera vendor yet, that's where this really counts
2) Adobe in it's traditional greedyness did not release this as Open Source, they released a spec but not code. They just don;t get how to work with the open source community. They think like a 1980s company.
PDF is the same way.
You can use their libraries or write your own.
No one else has supplied a solution so they stepped up. In the beginning, it was left up to the chip makers and what we have are multiple types of RAW formats. A complete mess. It's not like you camera manufacturer is not going to supply you a RAW image.
You'll just have yet another format to choose from.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
well, we do a couple jobs in house that we use both Quark and Adobes Inproduction (w/acrobat 4.0).
.PRN files printed from windows apps. Well almost anything, they dont support importing PNG images :)
But anyways, if your printer uses products from Creo, (i.e. Prinergy or Brisque) they'll be able to support anything you send them. Even
Be a freind and don't use DSC/2 though, they take forever to rip (from 10 minutes to an hour or so per file sometimes). PDF's rip (to CMYK seperations) pretty easily and very fast.
I follow the SDK and GDN principles.. Spelling Dont Kount, Grammer Dont Neither
This is the exact dpreview link where you can start learning about photography and know the terms in simple english http://http//www.dpreview.com/learn/?/glossary/ Additionally http://www.shortcourses.com/ is also a very good resource where i learned the techniques
Striving to be common...
And how much processing time does it take? Oops there goes your battery.
But seriosuly, to draw an analogue between RAW images and sound, you would have to say that RAW is like a 192 kbps 48 bit audio feed--in other words, everything possible is captured and stored, for future manipulation. The audio might not be clear and pristine (it might have clicks and background noises), but you can take it back to the studio and remove or highlight those things in software.
By comparison, camera encoded JPEGs are like 96 kbps mp3s that were recorded from a crappy FM radio station. They get the message across, but they're dull as all getout, they miss all of the highlights, blur out the detail, and nobody sane would try to squeeze such a thing into a professional presentation--like a blockbuster movie--except perhaps as a joke.
The point is, RAW images are like digital negatives. You can adjust color balance, and tweak the way the pre-processor interpolates the color values, and all sorts of crazy stuff... And no existing image format can be easily shoe-horned to do this. Cameras RAW format dosen't have a RGB value for every pixel, because the sensors don't have the ability to capture all colors at once. There's a red sensor, a blue sensor, and a couple green sensors, all laid out in a grid a million times over. Existing formats expect to have a RGB (or CMYK) value for EVERY pixel. Not space efficient for a camera.
This DNG thing seems to be a step in the right direction; I hope it's as free (at least to the end-users) as pdf.
Problem is sensors are all different. There are different geometric pixel layouts, ie at least 3 variations of Bayesian and various stacked sensors. New designs are being toyed with constantly, which implies new algorithms to generate a usable image. Fuji has a rather interesting sensor that uses high sensitivity sites along side low sensitivity sites to improve contrast in low light conditions. Other infrared sensors utilize 7 or more "colors".
The RAW formats used by camera makers generally have pixel level information + jpg (or other low size compressed) preview + various metadata. RAW lets the operator tune the color response and even sharpen an image using cleaner algorithms than possible with a TIFF or JPG, because you are dealing with geometry and pixel levels directly, not some approximation done in-camera by interpolation and conversion to a color space. Yes even TIFFs out of your camera are "lossy" due to the unavoidable in-camera processing.
RAW allows for much more control, but you must have some information about the specific sensor being used and the appropriate (and sometimes proprietary) algorithms. There are several different algorithms for each camera maker's RAW format, including the ones that come with Photoshop CS. They all yield different results. I generally prefer the colors I get using the Fuji RAW converter versus that of CS on my S2.
This new DNG format is just like existing RAW, in that is contains pixel data + preview + metadata, only it standardizes the metadata and requires enough metadata to be able to interpret the pixel data into a useable image. That means a developer can look at a DNG and instantly know what sensor configuration and characteristics, lens settings etc, and how to interpret the pixel data (at some useable level). It also allows for manufacturers to include proprietary data, useful to their own specific interpretation algorithms. For the user/developer the actual interpretation is still left to your algorithm of choice.
The big deal of DNG is that a program that supports it (ie PhotoShop with DNG update) should, at some level at least, support DNG files from all existing and future sensors and cameras right out of the box, without a software update. Of course it is reasonable to expect that the best image possible might not come from generic DNG interpretations, but manufacturer specific ones which rely on the proprietary data within the DNG files.
Beauty is truly in the eye of the tiger
PNG, and MOST graphic formats use a RGB colour system, which is ideal for screen. Ideally a publisher would prefer to use a CMYK format, as this woudl make print reproduction far more accurate, especially in the screening process, which would already be done, on a CMYK format.
Have a nice day!
So it looks like they aren't charging for it.
That doesn't mean it's unrestricted. A file format that's free of charge but has licensing restrictions that make it hard to use in open-source software is certainly possible. There's only been half a dozen of them so far, after all.
In your patronizing rant you forgot to explain what is wrong with advocating PNG over extending TIFF. I don't see why you feel so "holier than thou" about this, given your apparent inability to argue your case.
PNG can handle anything that TIFF can. I checked, you could make a color format with >4 256-bit elements if you wanted to. (that'd be a "1024-bit format"). There'd be no problem at all adding whatever model and optional compression scheme Adobe wishes to use.
When you explain, feel free to get as technical about it as you want.
Futhermore, the moment the camera is designed, it's "lossy" since it has to be crunched down into an image of fixed color depth and fixed image size and pixelized.
Unless the image is saved in a raw format, which is exactly what DNG is. Raw data in this case means, the raw data directly taken from the sensors. This is done before any white balancing, denoising, downsampling, compressing and whatever your camera does with the image. Therefore all this processing can be done by software which in many cases can do it much better than the algorithms built into the camera.
The average photographer could not care less but for a serious photographer this can make a world of difference. A standardized format would mean that - if cameras support the format - tools could use that one standardized format, instead of all the different formats used by all the different cameras.
So, in essence, raw format is lossy?
mmmhhh... didn't know that.
errera hunamum ets
The spec not only allows the metadata to be held in EXIF, but two other formats as well - IPIC and one other I forget.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> Most cameras that offer RAW mode have 12 bit sensors so you get 4096
I couldn't remember if it was 10-bit or 12-bit. Thx for the correction.
> The problem with JPG is that those 12 bits of information are squeezed into 256 levels of an 8 bit image.
Yeah, quantization sucks.
> Why is it that CinePaint doesn't get more publicity?
Never heard of CinePaint until today. I imagine Photoshop publicity is spread via a word-of-mouth type advertising. It is what everyone-else-you-know uses, either at home or at work, so it gets plugged. Why look for alternatives, when it does what you need?
Wow, CinePaint was used in "2 Fast 2 Furious, Scooby-Doo, Harry Potter, Stuart Little and other feature films." Pretty cool. Thx for the link.
Peace
--
Original, Fun Palm games by the Lead Designer of Majesty!
http://www.arcanejourneys.com/
We really shouldn't even call it an image format. Most people think of image formats as a way to compress and store image data for viewing or printing; things like JPEG or GIF or PNG.
DNG is a format for storing the data recorded by the CCD's in a digital camera. This data can of course be processed and displayed as an image, but DNG really isn't an image format exactly.
All is Number -Pythagoras.
A DNG-format file is fully compliant with the TIFF 6.0 Specification Standard and the ISO TIFF-EP codification of that spec, which was designed from day one as a fully extensible raw, processed, or whatever image / metadata annotation spec.
BTW, TIFF was originally designed for offset printing folks, and in the 6.0 standard already supports a huge number of colorspace models besides RGB, and has an extensible mechanism for specifying color-data encoding and compression schemes (you can even store JPEG encoding in TIFF).
When I worked at the ground-data processing section of the Jet Propulsion labs, TIFF was occasionally used to store and transmit raw multispectral satellite data, which consisted of over 256 separate color-spectra bands from far infrared to ultraviolet, stored spatially in separate tiles.
Working together with Spot Image and other satellite providers, NASA also helped develop the GeoTIFF extension to TIFF, which annotates an image with exact georeferencing information.
It looks like Adobe went the route of using SubIFD's to define the extended data. A little bit unfortunate, since that data will not show up in a "tiffdump" listing of the file, but in any case I have no doubt that folks are already taking the spec and writing "libtiff" extensions to parse the stuff.
For more information on TIFF, see my old, clunky website that is chock full of invalid links,but still has a few useful things to say:
http://home.earthlink.net/~ritter/tiff
--Niles (original GeoTIFF and TIFF webpage author)
Or, to paraphrase, is it possible for camera manufacturers to produce "standard" DNG files that aren't actually viewable on anything other than that camera's included software without reverse engineering proprietary metadata?
Amen to that. At the risk of sounding like an elitist asshole, it's obvious that a good many folks on Slashdot don't know much about photography, and think that just because they bought Sony's newest fucking Cybershot that they're the next Helmut Newton.
As for myself, I've been eagerly waiting for an influential company to propose something like this; I work in a pro lab, and having to master and keep up to date on a dozen different raw converters is very stressful. A single standardized open format that I can use right inside Photoshop (at work) or the Gimp (at home) is like the holy grail to me!
It would be interesting if this could somehow be adapted to 35mm or medium format negative scanners, too. Being able to do big corrections after the scan would save me a hell of a lot of time.
PNG already supports arbitrary additional data blocks... no need to break it by adding a new "standard" for them.
See the PNG spec for details.
- chrish
PNG can handle a maximum of 16-bit RGBA or 16-bit greyscale (see the IHDR chrunk spec).
- chrish
DING! DING!
Except for Adobe haters, who will pronounce it "dung" and porn photographers, who will pronounce it "dong".
Who said anything about the desktop? This article is about raw image manipulation, which is only ever likely to be used by extreme photography nerds, or professionals. There's no reason to make this format "succeed on the desktop"
For starters, even though some cameras may not, TIFFs can be compressed. I'm pretty sure they use LWZ compression.
RAW files from a camera are not simply a better version of a TIFF; a lossless RGB image. They are a dump from the image sensor, and are not in anyway a normal RGB image. They must be processed before they become a usable image.
Due to the nature of most CCDs, the RAW will acctually be smaller than the final RGB image it produces (do a google on CCDs to know why).
At the moment. If you want to view/edit/convert a RAW image, you generally have to use special software that comes with the camera (although I think some make plug-ins for Photoshop). This is a pain for most people as it means using 2 different programs to edit an image. It also means you can't open it with any computer that just happens to have Photoshop etc. installed.
The sensor (CCD) are the first lossy transformation the image goes throught they are somewhat similar to the negative in the film/analog fotography.
The camera captures this data and usually pass it throught a pipeline of operation that end up in a compression. Usually you have white balance, denoise, color conversion and depth (raw is 16bit p/ channel, jpg 8 bits p/ channel) adjustment. All those adjustment could be viewed as a "digital ampliation" if you stretch your mind a little.
Having access to the raw format is like having access to negative, many effects can be achieved in the amplifier, and as such many effects can be achieved with the raw format that are simply impossible with the jpg.
Sure many people will still preffer the jpg, but I do heard some people trhow their negatives in the trash.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
So in other words, the Slashdot writeup that stated this was a new format that was better than JPEG was completely incorrect, and in actual fact this is simply a container format that uses existing JPEG algorithms? Sounds about usual for Slashdot these days.
According to the JPEG FAQ, PNG is more efficient than lossless JPEG for most images. Unfortunately, this specification doesn't allow for that; as far as I can tell this has little to do with picture quality and more to do with metadata and interoperability.
Come on, PNG is pronounced "PiNG" so DNG will be pronounced "DiNG." Unless, of course, the format fails miserably, in which case "DuNG" will probably catch on.
Oh... okay...
You've all made some very valid arguments. I now better understand why a RAW format may be a preferred method of storing an image. In short, "you win."
But still... DuNG?
This is an instance of the TIFF-EP format. It specifies things like values for certain tags, byte ordering, etc. It's not a completely new format.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Guns. Lots of gnus.
I say we take-off and slashdot the site from orbit... it's the only way to be sure
If you want to update your Camera Raw (w/in Photoshop 7 or CS) the direct links seem to be the only way to get to them (at least for Win versions):
o p/cameraraw/mac/DNG_Camera_Raw_2_3.sit.hqx
o p/cameraraw/win/DNG_Camera_Raw_2_3.zip
Mac:
http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/magic/photosh
PC:
http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/magic/photosh
Based on being a user of several pieces of raw image processing software, I can tell you that choosing event eh wrong camera type (even if its int he correct family) produces crappy results. Also, different raw post-processing engines give different results (some better, some worse, some depending on the raw file). Based on those observations, I'm going to have to guess that any raw processing engine is going to need to know quite a bit about the camera in order to actually be any good.....so even if the file format is standard, I'd say that you'll still need some data about the camera the file came from. And probably a whole lot more than what woudl be reasonable to put in the file itself.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
Pro's don't like to use JPEG because JPEG doesn't allow the level of post processing that RAW does. Hell Canon RAW's include a normal quality JPEG as part of the RAW image for faster previews.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
They are using TIFF-EP as a base - a thing they didn't even develop. So how would they have a submarine patent on anything here? If there were a submarine patent related to TIFF we would have seen that long ago. Since it's really TIFF and metadata, there simply is nothing to torpedo with the submarine.
This is just a graphic file format like any other, using bog-standard compression and metadata standards. It's just a more standard bag for raw camera data than what we've seen before.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Straight from CCD files == A Good Thing with respect for total postprocessing control, as long as you have good support, say through the ACR plugin. But they're A Bad Thing with respect to most everything else -- such as guarantees that these files will be readable sometime in the future, or that you can process *your* images using non-ACR-plugin enabled tools (like, say, a homegrown 3-tier image cataloging suite).
And don't even ask about the vendor supplied RAW processing tools that can produce, say, a TIFF from a given RAW file. They usually *stink* with respect to performance, only work on Windows or Mac, and, finally, will have NO guarantee that such a tool will be available to me on my platform of choice in the year 2010.
While it's true that the so-called lossless JPEG can be used for 8-bit images, most of the RAW formats have significantly more bit depth than 8 bits. Therefore, any 8-bit encoding will necessarily lose some information, potentially extremely important information.
Most RAW formats are linear, and an 8-bit sampling of those images without gamma- or log-conversion will cause the loss of most of the picture detail.
Thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Sounds like the format should also specify a device profile spec like icc that allows the post processor to take the profile and use it as a transformation for the image along with the paramters set from the metadata.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Not knowing much more about the guts of how theis type of post-processing works, I'd say that type of thing would be a minimum requirement....it might not even really be enough for high quality processing.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
In astronomical work, there are usually two calibration images you use: the dark frame and the flat. The dark frame is an image captured with the shutter closed. It lets you identify the hot (i.e. broken) pixels. The flat is an image of a uniform field exposed just long enough not to saturate any pixels. This lets you measure the relative light sensitivity of the pixels (which is a function of both the lens and the CCD).
To get a corrected image, use this formula for each pixel:
newimage = (image - dark) / (flat - dark)
Better yet, take a bunch of darks and flats and median-filter them to get rid of cosmic rays which can introduce spurious glitches in the images.
Actually, there's a scanner program called Vuescan that will let you do something like this. It's not an open format, but the program will allow you to save the raw output from the scanner to a file and then manipulate it after the fact.
Many cameras have 16 bit per channel does png support this? Many cameras work with different color spaces, does PNG support this? Many cameras have a single "monochrome" color LCD with a colored tiled mask to get, those mask are either RGB, CMY or even more unusual patterns, do PNG encode this?
This image format was created arround the TIFF format, why extend png witch is not as widelly accepeted to accomodate those stuff instead of the TIFF, witch already suport many of those things?
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
I've looked over most of the information Adobe has published, and it's not bad. It's true that a typical RAW format file is difficult to interpret. I've reverse-engineered a couple of RAW formats just for fun, (it's pretty easy if you can tell the camera to output a RAW and TIFF image of the same shot) and the Adobe propsed DNG format does have flags for most of the issues that I've come across (I have to say that there were some new ones for me, too -- the flag that specifies how closely the G in the RGRG rows compares to the G in the GBGB rows is something I've never even thought of.) It's good that Adobe has considered the possibility of more-than-three-channel cameras.
But -- I think that digital cameras are still *way* too new for this kind of standardization. Significant true innovation is happening at a frenetic pace, and if we limit RAW formats to a preconceived format we may inadvertantly (or advertantly, I suppose) squelch that innovation. Fuji's spectacular sensor with separate sensors at each pixel for dark and bright values is an example -- how would that be encoded here? One might well have a camera with vertical and horizontal polarizers on every other cell, to allow post-processessing to reduce or enhance specular highlights. Cameras could be built with psuedorandom placement of cells, to eliminate aliasing artifacts (Why not? It's not as if the semiconductor masks are laid down by hand anymore.)
In short, I think that this format could end up being a Procrustean bed that we force camera makers into, and that it's not worth it at this point.
Thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I think he was trying to make a more general, somewhat humorous, point.
There have been several improved image formats since jpeg - all of which have failed because they were closed.
Its easy enough to make a jpeg work well enough - the pressure on outsiders to conform is unrelenting. Their product will mean nothing without Cameras - they'll have to give it to the Camera people - and that's just about everybody - then the software folks will need to use it.
The big markets for Cameras involve speciallized software (Law enforcement, pros, medical, etc)
AIK
Now, most camera raw formats use lossless compression (my Canon 300D packs 9 million pixel samples at 12 bit into 6 megabytes of raw file, which is quite good). From the format description, DNG files would be much larger. Since, CF card storage is still expensive, I don't think OEMs will be adopting this format anytime soon.
Well, a raw file is a lot more compact, and it does not do anything to change the artifacts and or "lossyness" of the sensor itself.
For instance the Canon cameras use a Bayer sensor. Imagine a checkerboard where half the sensors, are green , arranged in a checkerboard pattern, and the other half the sensors alternate between red and blue. The 12 bit value of each sensor site is encoded as the eight bit difference between it and the nearest same color site to its left. ( Amiga developers will find this vaguely familiar) The theoretical case of there being a full 12 bit difference between 2 sites never happens due to the optical properties of the camera and lens.
That is like saying that XML should never have been invented. XML (performance-wise) is not as an efficient of a storing method as many other file formats. However, everyone can read it and iterpret it. The key feature it it's broad usability. In a similar fashion, the DNG file could be larger and possibly not as effiient, but the KEY FEATURE would be that it is standard. Any application would know the settings and extra information about a picture taken from a digital camera, regardless of the brand or type of camer known.
Before we continue this endless stream of "Why don't they use so-and-so image format that I read about on Slashdot once?" questions, please, everyone, take the time to RTFA and see that this is raw camera data--i.e., before conversion to an RGB (or any other) colorspace--allowing you to tweak settings such as aliasing and other attributes used by the camera before converting the raw data into a displayable format. This is the raw data that the camera actually "sees" before being visualized in a display format.
About fuckin' time!
Must-not-watch TV!
"Gnus don't kill people. People kill people."
And for one good reason: Adobe Photoshop is pretty the de facto standard for still image processing software used by most everyone (whether on Macintoshes or PC's). As such, it would sure make image processing of uncompressed image files vastly easier to start with not having to deal with multiple RAW formats like Photoshop has to do now.
I wouldn't be surprised that all the Japanese digital still camera manufacturers start offering DNG file support within the next 18 months. And because the DNG specification is an open spec, don't be surprised that within a year some programmer will upgrade GIMP under GPL so it can read DNG image files.
By the way, given the rapidly falling prices on 512 MB flash memory cards in Compact Flash, SD and xD formats, I wouldn't be surprised that higher-end point and shoot digital still cameras will offer DNG support (it's obvious that digital SLR's will get DNG support).
So they're gonna be pronounced as "Ding" I'm assuming, consider the possibilities:
Yeah, they continue the tradition started with PNG aka ping.
You need to install an RTFM interface.
Now, this doesn't mean Adobe won't leverage the spec and make piles of cash off of it, but at least in this case they're actually inventing something that people need instead of trying to push something on them that they don't.
Not directly. You just used 3 and a bit paragraphs to explain why this matters for Adobe which is all fine w/me and then you continue to say it doesn't make them money? Come on...
It does make sense for Adobe from a business point of view. How about usual benefits from an open standard? Ease of use for the user? Less developing time spend on supporting many formats? No license fees for proprietary formats in the future? The list goes on, all in the benefit for Adobe (and possibly competitors, too).
A happy customer is money. A customer saved is a penny earned. More customers is more pennies. Less happy customers is potentially less pennies and less customers it less pennies. Simple as kissing.
WE DON'T NEED NO BLOG CONTROL.
This article really highlights the ignorance and prejudice prevalent on Slashdot. Get off your soapbox about patents, file formats, open source, and corporations. RTFA and then comment.
DNG is a good thing.
One problem though, since a TIFF file uses 4-byte integer file offsets to store image data, doesn't that mean a TIFF file cannot have more than 4 Gigabytes of raster data ?
Current high end 22 megapixel backs with 16 bit Bayer sensors would give a 440 meg file. I would conservatively guess that we will see 200 megapixel cameras with 4 Gigabyte raw files in 10 years. If this hit's the wall at 200 megapixels, I guess it will only be about 10 years until it's obsolete.
Nobody is willing to touch JPEG2000 with a ten foot pole. AFAIK 48 companies claimed that their software patents apply to the format.
So we need to wait for 2020 before anyone can use it.
Raw Digital Photo Decoding in Linux
RawPhoto GIMP-2.0 plug-in
The first is a command-line utility for processing the raw format images from a variety of cameras, including Nikon's NEF format and the second is a great plug-in for Gimp that integrates it with a GUI.
As long as I can open the file in GraphicConverter, I'll be fine.
"Download the specification, which describes a nonproprietary file format for storing camera raw files that can be used by a wide range of hardware and software vendors." from Adobe'sweb page about DNG. (emphasis added.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Parent: I'm sure you're a reasonably intelligent person. You're screaming on an Internet message board (blog, news site, whatever...) about what are, to 95% of the population, highly esoteric IMAGE FORMATS. Maybe try channeling that considerable "energy" (relgious fervor) into something a little more worthwhile? Just a suggestion.
I agree that RAW formats and an image format like PNG are apples and oranges. (Not really econo cars and jumbo jets.) Point is that what's wrong with PNG as an image format is that it does not support EXIF tags, which makes it pretty useless for storing digital images.
No matter what format they store it in, bit rot will never be eliminated on magnetic discs.
JNG, a subset of MNG, already does this. It allows for images with JPEG color channels (at least gray, RGB, or YCC) and a PNG alpha channel. Dither alpha to 4-bit if you want lossy alpha.
a RAW file isn't negative
Is it designed for viewing? Negative. Are PNG and JPEG designed for viewing? Affirmative.
I think we are better off calling things with their real/objective names then recycling old names.
If you would rather not let others call a file containing data read off an image sensor a "negative", then do you let them call a directory a "folder"? In addition, a "file" meant something else in the paper world before it meant a structure referring to an association between a name and an ordered set of storage sectors.
I didn't notice any comment about how/why RAW formats come about. Every camera manufacturer produces several hardware components. These components cost money to design, implement, and debug. Unlike Software, hardware can't be patched, isn't free to duplicate, and reusing components yields a measurable (and often substantial) savings.
So Canon has a line of PowerShot Pro, PowerShot S, PowerShot G, and EOS Digital cameras which all use the CRW (Canon RAW) file format. Newer ones use the new CR2 (Canon RAW V 2.0) file format.
Nikon uses NEF, and Kodak uses TIFFs (thumbnails with a proprietary chunk of data). Sigma/Foveon and FujiFulm use others.
It would be nice if they all saved some standard format. The problem is two-fold:
1) Each company wants to use their own secret algorithms to decode their data and get the "best" from their format. It's one of the ways they distinguish themselves.
2) Each company has already invested in the hardware to produce these RAW files.
So the bottom line is that Adobe is a company which makes the world's most popular photo processing app. They want a file format to unify RAW processing. They produce a converter, and a plugin.
If you don't use Photoshop to process your RAW files (say you use Capture One, or Breeze Browser), then you really don't get much benefit from this DNG file format unless third parties (your converter maker) implements it.
Adobe is hoping that 3rd parties (camera makers) will adopt their format. The problem is that it doesn't provide anything new. Why would a camera maker spend a few million dollars in development costs to support a new file format with no additional benefit?
JPEG2000? Maybe, but it doesn't specify Bayer Pattern sensor data compression mechanisms. DNG? No. It doesn't have any advantages over the already existing formats.
If Intel, AMD, Sony, or Canon produced an imaging chip which used new techniques like wavelets to compress RAW data, and sold this to the camera manufacturers, then there would be value in this new standard. As it sits, the Software industry is the tail, and the hardware industry is the dog. The dog wags its tail, not the other way around.
Because if you read the TIFF format documents, you'll see that it's a horrible mess, and uses compression methods which were patented at the time.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
1. DNG--being a true open format specification--means DNG uncompressed image files could conceivably be read by a GPL image processing software such as GIMP, so it would be very easy to write an update for GIMP with full DNG support.
2. You're forgetting most of the world's serious digital image processing working is done on Photoshop, the de facto standard for such work. Simplifying processing of uncompressed image files would make the work of professional photographers a LOT easier.
Wrong. RAW is a blanket term for all of the types of files that take their information directly off of the ccd/cmos to give the most control later. Nikon has nef, canon has crw and there are many others
What's not mentioned here is also that the bits in the RAW files don't represent color in the same manner as regular image formats. The bit values for the color channels translate to Electron Volts as read by the sensors which can't be mapped 1-1 to a color value.
This combined with having to interpolate from the Bayer pattern sensor arrangement makes converting RAW pretty CPU-intensive. What Adobe is trying to do is to let the developers to concentrate on improving the conversion speed and image quality instead of having to spend all their time reverse engineering the formats.
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
DuNG? DaNG. I really wanted it to be called DoNG.
I thought we already had JPEG2000 for our lossy and loss-less needs.
:)
Several chips for JPEG2000 in digital cameras have been designed, some even produced and sold. But I don't see the massive in-flux of cameras! The trouble is nobody wants a camera supporting a format that's harder for them to use on a PC, and they don't understand how old and decrepit JPEG is in comparison. After all, JPEG was standardised in the days when the fastest desktop machine took painful seconds to decode a small image, and it took years to get people to actually use it. New ideas since then have been put in writing but it will unfortunately be around the time of obsolescence that people start using them
You would be hard-pressed to sell a car with steam power yet people are using the equivalent in their cameras. Harder to use comes from less software support. The same problem I presume that this new format is going to suffer.
JPEG2000 is an ISO/IEC standard and an ITU-T recommendation. Whatever this "new" format is, it presumably doesn't have that kind of clout. People need to get with it and start supporting JPEG2000. I don't mean via plug-ins, I mean it should be there by default. A decent free-software (LGPL) library would allow Web browsers to support it, and I think this is all we need for an avalanche of support to follow. After all I wouldn't be generating PNG/JPEG pairs for my image gallery if I knew that people could access the JPIP protocol to retrieve a thumbnail and higher res. images without wasted data and in a resolution matching their monitor (on-the-fly of course!).
Yes I happen to like JPEG2000. I had to implement part of it once upon a time.
The new format is just defining the placement of where some data should go in a TIFF-EP file! Doesn't get more standard than that.
It's also more flexible than Jpeg2000 would be, in terms of additions to the format.
I thought Jpeg2000 had some patent issues as well? Not a problem with TIFF which has been around since the dawn of time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley