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Adobe Blasts Nikon's Closed File Format
Joe Decker writes "Thomas Knoll, creator of Adobe Photoshop,
blasts Nikon's use of encryption to limit access to white-balance information contained in D2X RAW images files. Fearing the DMCA, Adobe won't reverse-engineer the file, slightly reducing Photoshop's support for those files.
Nikon responds. Is Adobe whining? Is Nikon shooting itself in the foot?" We've covered this previously.
Fortunately, outside the Land Of The Free(tm), anyone can access Nikon's encrypted data with a simple GNU/Linux application
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Looks like Nikon's goofy encryption has been broken.
Oh, here's a link to dcraw which will blast through Nikon's bullshit.
What other digital camera manufacturers have documented their RAW file format?
o p.windows/browse_thread/thread/8636502afc4e20f9/60 6e144ad0af19c2?q=fuji+s2+white+balance+adobe&rnum= 7&hl=en#606e144ad0af19c2
Adobe has previously been having a similar problem with the Fuji WB's as it can been seen here, taken from the following thread on usenet:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/adobe.photosh
>Chris Cox Feb 20 2003, 10:08 pm show options
>It's out of agreement because the plugin cannot read the FUJI
>proprietary and undocumented data, and is making a guess at
>the whitepoint based on the image contents.
>
>If you would like to see this improved, please contact Fuji and
>ask them to work with Adobe to read their proprietary and
>undocumented file format(s).
The NEF file format is Nikon's RAW data, ie: not compressed to JPEG or other format, it's pure image data from the camera's sensor.
By default, Nikon cameras (that are able to shoot RAW) convert to JPEG on the camera, and you have to select RAW manually. Sadly though as you discovered, they don't supply fully licensed software that can read RAW data with their cameras, beyond a trial version of Nikon Capture (this might have worked for you?).
Granted - their software is a total pain in the ass to install. I've just recovered from a situation in which I installed updated 4.1 to 4.2, but the installer crashed, and 4.1 refused to reinstall because it detected the remnants of 4.2 and aborted - leaving me with no usable version of the software. In the end I had to borrow a copy of version 3 which didn't have the newer-version-check in the installer, and then patch up from there.
I'm not bothered about NEF being encrypted or whatever, but I do think it's lame that they don't supply a fully licensed copy of Nikon Capture with their cameras that can shoot RAW. I own a D70 and had to fork out for a copy of it to make the most of the camera. Other than that, Photoshop natively supports NEF files, although IMO the remote control and live previewing features of Capture make it worth the cost.
What most /.-ers miss is that Adobe Camera RAW as well as most other converters such as Capture One or RawShooter don't rely on manufacturers' SDK to convert RAW files. This way they can achive better results.
I don't know about Nikon, but for my Canon I know that ACR produces far better results than Canon RAW Converter.
What other digital camera manufacturers have documented their RAW file format?
That entirely misses the point.
Undocumented RAW formats are one thing, and can in most cases be reverse-engineering quite trivially just by using commonsense.
But what Nikon did was to *ENCRYPT* the values contained in one particular set of fields, those holding the white balance information.
This is totally unrelated to the structure of their RAW files being undocumented. It requires a decryption key to release that data (which is the photographer's data anyway, not theirs), and commonsense cannot possibly reveal it.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
One key difference is that Nikon has not only left their file format undocumented, they've actively encrypted a key image parameter, allegedly as a spoiler tactic to prevent 3rd party developers fully parsing the files without signing up as 'approved' developers. If Nikon decides you are a 'bona fide' software company worthy of the honour, you can get hold of an SDK (apparently Windows/Mac C++ only with binary runtime libraries) but won't be given a full description of the file format. This has serious implications for the use of Nikon NEF files as an archival format (will Nikon's SDK components work on whatever OS you are running in 20 years time?), for developers who want to use their own algorithms (like Adobe), and for FOSS projects. Luckily, Dave Coffin has already reverse engineered the decryption algorithm in the current version of his open source dcraw RAW converter, so we're not yet locked out of the NEF format. What isn't yet clear is whether Nikon will continue with this sort of tactic in future NEF versions, and if Adobe will overcome their DMCA concerns to fully support NEF in their ACR raw converter (assuming they're not just grandstanding). Incidentally, there's a brief description by Tom Christiansen of the white balance encryption algorithm here, and a pointer by Thomas Knoll (of Photoshop fame) to the relevant section of the dcraw code here.
Nikon released a statement late last week regarding the "encryption" (not technically encryption, but instead, obfustication) of the RAW format (NEF) photo data taken with a D2X camera:
Nikon: You Are Wrong. Period. And do not insult me by lying.Update: Nikon has removed this statement from their web site.
The thing that galls me about Nikon's statement is that Nikon is essentially telling me that I need to use their processing solution, or one that they approve, or not use the NEF format at all.
They can wax poetic in PR legalese all they want, but at the end of the day, all I am reading is that Nikon is saying that my data is for me to use as they see fit. No, Nikon, it is not.
A camera is an instrument to take a photograph, and that's all. Now, however, the coming of age of digital has married irrevocably cameras and software. Without software, a digital camera is absolutely useless. It produces nothing tangible, and to make that photograph anything more than a small image on the LCD screen on the back of the camera, you simply must have software.
That said, if the images are now aetherial bits, do they not still belong to us, the photographers, or our assignees?
I think the answer to that is yes. They certainly would if they were film images. And has any camera manufacturer ever mandated what film processing methods must be used with photographs taken with their camera? No. It would have been insane for one to even try.
And this is insane now.
As such, I think that the SDK should be freely available to anyone who asks for it, and at the very least, to any owner of a Nikon digital camera. Why should I not be allowed to write my own software? Because Nikon says that I can't, as I am not a 'bona fide' developer? Do I need to be one, to write applications to fiddle with my own images?
No. The data are mine.
Let me use a real world example: I photograph a lot of panoramics. I use Panorama Tools a great deal of the time to stitch those programs together. Now then, PTools does not have an embedded interface for NEF files, especially D2X NEF files. Let's say that I wanted to open my NEF files and input them programmatically into Panorama Tools. With this press release, Nikon is telling me that I cannot have the information to do the task I want to do. In other words, sod off, pay us to play.
This whole issue reminds me much of Gillette, the razor company, when their mantra was "sell the razor cheap and the blades at a high price." Instead this time, it is "sell the camera high and continue to reach into their pockets to allow the photographer to use his/her pictures. Use our software, or someone we like, or do not use your data as you see fit."
Worst of all, this has been enabled by the US government, what with the asinine provision of the Digital Milleneum Copyright Act. The DCMA makes it illegal to reverse engineer encrypted files. Bottom line is that one can argue that NEF files are not encrypted, but in reality, they are, because the data are obfusticated...and without Nikon's blessing, one risks enormous civil fines and prison to bypass Nikon's methods.
I hope at the end of the day Nikon is punished severely by the marketplace for this. I truly hope that Canon makes a point to point out in their marketing that not only do they not charge for their RAW conversion tools but that developers can get the information they need to extend the capabilities of Canon cameras.
That sounds severe, but the only thing Nikon will understand is a beat-down from their potential customers. And this time, Nikon deserves a black eye.