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DMCA Prevents Photoshop Support of Nikon Camera
Will writes "PhotoshopNews.com reports that the risk of getting sued under the DMCA prevents Adobe from fully supporting the raw file format of Nikon's top professional camera Nikon D2X. The file format contains encrypted white balance information that is necessary to render the image correctly and while the encryption can and has been broken, Adobe fears getting sued under the DMCA if they decrypt the data."
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
The term "raw" refers to the fact that the data is straight off of the camera sensor. The encrypted data contains the white balance settings that tell a program how to interperate the single color pixel information to interpolate it in to an RGB (or possibly CYMK) image.
I'm a Canon shooter, but for you Nikon people, here's some links to keep you updated:
Nikon D2X white balance encryption
Nikon saying you don't need Photoshop
As a professional photographer, i frankly prefer Nikons own RAW filter, its definately better at processing RAW files than Adobes. i had never assumed that the DMCA had anything to do with the RAW processing, as most camera manufacturers have thir own proprietary RAW formats. In the print/prepress world proprietary software and hardware is the norm, not the exception. Having to spend money on an inexpensive plugin is hardly a major inconvenience. (Not to mention that i got the software bundled with my camera)
Once you're getting into the "pro" bracket of digital photo investment, serious users are much more inclined to use secondary software solutions that work with photoshop...regardless of cost. While photoshop edits great images and most photoprinters put out some fantastic pictures, serious digital image makers regularly use printer RIPs that cost more then the actual printer.
Furthermore, several high-end photographers are extolling the virtues of stand-alone raw processors as an addition to their photoshop workflow.
I'm not saying that it's morally acceptable for Nikon to lock part of their RAW format, I'm just saying that the impact of this upon the pro photo world is far less significant then it would appear.
:::: the insomniac's digest
The people that buy cameras like the D2 series are professional photographers for the most part. Many are already invested in one camera system or the other. For most the body is a small investment (though not quite as small as it use to be). Many photographers have invested $10,000 or more in lens($$$), filters($), and speed lights($$).
Someone just up and changing system is a big deal. Will this feature cost Nikon sales, probably, will it be a significant amount of money, unlikely.
I was going to mod this up, but I just couldn't do it.
Your hate.
YOUR HATE.
YOUR YOUR YOUR.
Never confuse volume with power.
Nikon made the decision to encrypt the WHITE BALANCE information, not the entire RAW file. And as a side-effect, Adobe is afraid that supporting a reverse-engineered method for decrypting this would violate the DMCA. The wording and subsequent meaning of this article does not accurately portray the reality of the situation.
n cryptnef.asp
Article for reference: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0504/05041901nikon_e
"Support Bacteria - Its the only culture some people have" - Circa 1985
As Adobe themselves state, they expect to have preliminary support for the D2X in May ( http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw. html )
As the article itself mentions, it's not really that big a deal. It is the white balance parameters as set on the camera when the image was shot that is encrypted. The RAW data isn't directly affected by this, and picking a white-balance preset or performing manual/auto whitebalacing on the RAW data gives you the same/similar/better results (that's partly the point of shooting RAW, no?)
What could be worse is if they encrypted the data as well. This is what SONY does on the F828 and V3, for example.
However, both are supported by Photoshop's RAW support, so I take it they simply licensed or SONY gave them a thumbs up for supporting it. No idea why they encrypt it, though.
Regardless.. that's what would have to happen with any future encrypted formats.. I doubt we've seen the last of them anyway.
If all else fails, get the dcraw utils ( http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/ ) and convert from one raw to another. That's where the SONY decryptor is also hosted.
Speaking of dcraw... has Adobe given the author credit yet ?
Adobe asked Nikon, and Nikon said NO to a licensing deal.
Anyways, notice how Adobe is the only one complaining. I believe it is because Nikon's competing software (and software that other 3rd parties have made) has made Adobe Photoshop less relevant. That is why CS 2 is coming out....to correct the deficiency Photoshop has with regard to digital photography.
Other 3rd party software companies have worked around the WB data, and aren't complaining like Adobe is. There is more to the story than this.
Photoshop supports my Nikon d70, but the quality of the images is much better when using Nikon Capture... which is much cheaper and more flexible than Photoshop. So I first shoot the picture in Nikon NEF - then process it for colours etc in Nikon Capture, from which I save a tiff that can be used in Photoshop. I would do the same if I had (read - could afford) the D2x.
If you want to edit the photos with layers and whatnot you need photoshop or something similar. But for processing - Nikon Capture is technically superior.
Well, technically, Nikon is more of a general "optical equipment" manufacturer than just a camera manufacturer. They might be best known to the man on the street for their cameras, and maybe scanners, but the bulk of their revenue comes from the sale industrial optical equipment. We have a couple of them in our cleanroom at work that cost over $1m each, and Leica too for fans of the brand.
So, yes, while this will probably convince some people to buy another brand of DSLR instead of a Nikon, I'm afraid the "Nikon is doomed" crowd are going to be in for a long wait...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Well... This isn't quite true. Nikon does in fact have photoshop RAW plug-ins, and while they lack features of ACR they do work.
Also, this only effect White Balance. The files can still be read just fine, you'll just have to set WB manually (or use PS's Auto WB) Which really isn't that big of deal since most photographers tweak WB anyway.
Also Nikon Capture is ~$90 ($99 MSRP) which even has a button to open a NEF in Photoshop.
Anyway.. now that the fact are straight... This is a boneheaded decision by Nikon, but they are famous for such things. They make fantastic products, but the management has always been retarded.
--- Nothing To See Here ---
You're assuming that the competition is for established photographers. What happens if this year's round of people buying NEW professional cameras don't buy a Nikon? I would think that would be a far more serious concern.
Not true.
17 USC 1201 (a) states
(3) As used in this subsection - (A) to ''circumvent a technological measure'' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner;
17 USC 1201(b) states
(1) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that - (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a portion thereof;
It's all about the copyright owners.....
as a professional photographer, ive encounted maybe one or two people who shot jpeg, and thats because they did on-demand printing at events - they carried a printer with them and sold the pics they just took to attendees.
Everyone else shoots raw because you get all 12 bits of dynamic range which is necessary for quality cast corrections, you can perfect white balance later (or experiment with it), and you dont have to deal with compression and sharpening artifacts that shooting jpeg does, you can do better tonal curves... the reasons are numerous.
In sum, the only people who should ever shoot jpeg are snapshooters and professionals who must do instant turnaround.
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And don't think this is some far-fetched scenario. I bought their LS-2000 film scanner a bunch of years ago, with a 50 slide batch feeder. It was an awesome piece of hardware, but the software always sucked. You couldn't use the batch feeder particularly usefully, because the software wouldn't allow you to do an autoexposure operation before each scan, the way you could when scanning negs or individual slides. (Yes, you had to expose the WHOLE set of slides at the same exposure. Mind-boggling.) I had to write a ridiculous AppleScript to simulate mouse clicks in particular locations to get it to work.
Anyway, that's not my point. The LS-2000 was connected to the computer via SCSI. About a year or two after I bought it, Nikon came out with the newer line of scanners that used FireWire or USB instead of SCSI. Almost immediately after that, they stopped supporting SCSI scanners in the new versions of their software. And THEN they fixed the software so that you could do the autoexposure operation before each scan.
So I got stuck with a scanner that could never perform it's main function well and that's no longer supported by their proprietary software. And now they want to tell me that they're going to encrypt the files coming out of their digital cameras? It's hard enough to get good information out of the NEF files coming out of my D70 as it is without using their slow, shoddy software. If you're not locked in by lens purchases, DON'T BUY from a company that's so hostile to its customers as this!
I'm so fed up with Nikon I'm about ready to sell all my lenses and cameras and film scanner and move to Canon entirely. Their approach to technology is so unbelievably inept it makes me sick. My only hope is that a company as large and public as Adobe can turn around Nikon's attitude by making people more aware of stupid policies like this.
I am an "intellectual property" lawyer. That being said, the lawyers working for Adobe are going to be ultraconservative in an attempt to protect Adobe's interests. Thus, my answer and Adobe's answer will differ. Mine is, of course, the correct answer.
I can't explain it. It's not.
Copyright does not protect "functional" aspects of a written work. For example, you cannot copyright an accounting form, even if you can show that you have discovered a totally unique method of laying out the form that makes it twice as easy to check the calculations in half the time. Similarly, the white balance information is functional. Furthermore, the white balance information is functional in a way that has nothing to do with access control. Ipso facto, the white balance information cannot be protected as part of a copyrighted work.
Also, sec 1201(a)(3) clearly states:
As used in this subsection -
(A) to "circumvent a technological measure" means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
(B) a technological measure "effectively controls access to a work" if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
Nikon does not have a copyright in the white balance information. Nikon does not have a copyright in an image taken by the camera. Nikon does have a copyright in the firmware of the camera and in whatever software they distribute that reads this encrypted information.
Are you accessing the firmware in the camera when you manipulate these images? No. Are you accessing the Nikon software when you manipulate these images? Presumably, no -- I assume Adobe broke this encryption without using the Nikon software --.
Therefore, you are the copyright owner, and you implicitly grant authority to Adobe to access your Nikon-photographed image data, such that THIS IS NOT A DMCA VIOLATION as a matter of black letter statutory law.
Thank you... thank you very much.
Another example is with the current CoolPix 8800, the filter thread is 53.5 mm, which is frustratingly close to the 55 mm they could have made it, but oh no, they want to force me to buy their lame-ass filters. I can't even buy an ND8, or an ND64, or a conkin converter because of the wierd size.
I'm fed up, I'm going to get a Canon, or Sony next time. Nikon technology is great, but the company sucks, they need to get a clue.
--Mike--
I've got a Nikon Coolscan slide scanner. It's a wonderful unit that does excellent high-quality scans.
One day I brought it into work to scan some work-related slides. Since I use Vuescan instead of the Nikon software, I just needed the drivers. The original CDs were in a box somewhere from a recent move so I figured I'd just download the drivers off their web site and I'd be good to go.
Simple, right? Nope. I visited their web site and found they don't offer drivers. What modern peripherals company does not offer drivers online? Instead I had to register, provide proof that I owned the NikonScan software, and download an upgrade to it. Half an hour later I found out the upgrade wouldn't install without the original being present. If it won't install without the original present, why did I have to provide proof that I owned the original? Furthermore, it was packaged in such a way that you couldn't extract just the drivers.
I ended up going to some third party website which required I register, give a working email address, and opt out of a ton of mailing lists. 10kB and a virus scan later, I had the drivers installed.
Clue for Nikon: If someone wants drivers for your hardware, it's reasonable to assume they have the physical hardware present, which means they probably already paid for it. You don't have to make them jump through hoops with the original bundled CDs just to download hardware drivers.
>> Well, this looks like a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Any one else remember Dmitry Sklyarov?
Makes it kind of funny to see Adobe get locked out of someone else's IP.
http://request-header.info
2 reasons.
One is that the camera (sometimes) has an onboard white balance sensor that detects the temperature of the light you're in. These sensors vary in quality so on some cameras they might be useless, while on others they might work really well. Some cameras do this on the chip... but if its accurate, its good to know.
The other reason is time. If your camera accurately set the white balance for you, you dont have to mess with it in photoshop, thus saving time, and assuming you dont feel like changing the white balance.
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The encryption of the white balance information is really pretty trivial; many people who use Photoshop's raw converter set it manually anyway. What's scary is that if Nikon gets away with this, they might be emboldened and start encrypting more important data. I doubt they have any illusions that their own shitware could ever topple Photoshop from the image editing throne, but they might be thinking about revenue from licensing plugins.