RSSAdobe updates DNG photo format, adds Vista support
By Nate Mook | Published May 13, 2008, 11:15 AM
Adobe's Digital Negative specification, also known as the DNG format, was updated Tuesday, as the company pushes it to become a unified standard for working with raw photographic images taken by digital cameras.
Currently, major camera manufacturers utilize their own specifications, which are often incompatible and require software developers -- such as Adobe -- to painstakingly add support for each format and every change thereafter. DNG has seem some uptake with companies such as Pentax, but it's not used by Canon or Nikon.
Adobe says the updated specification (version 1.2) brings more flexibility to DNG, responding to industry requirements. DNG now supports the embedding of multiple different camera profiles into a single image file. The result is having different versions of the same photo in a more streamlined manner.
In addition, new metadata tags have been defined for DNG, including a field to indicate the integrity of the raw data within the file, which would let future cameras and software applications validate the image data and possibly fix corruption.
Windows and Mac OS X downloads of the DNG Converter are available from Adobe's Web site.
Adobe has concurrently released a DNG Codec for Windows Vista in order to make working with raw files more seamless under Microsoft's latest operating system. It joins Microsoft's own image standard called HD Photo, which is meant to replace the aging JPEG format and is also under review for standardization.
Why does Adobe get praise when they want to create a format of their own, and Microsoft for the most part gets attack for their Open XML format.
Don't get me wrong I think their should be standards in office documents, picture files, music files, video files. They should each of different versions of the same format, to provide additional features/quality depending if its an document or audio/video/picture file.
If the formats were open, well documented, and supported by the majority of the industry we would get a ton of issues solved.
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Honestly, I don't think that Microsoft is very good at coming up with open standards. As with OpenXML, the seem to have a nasty habit of seeing something that already exists and then making their own version of it.
DNG is a unified RAW format, and that's nothing to do with HD Photo. I offer photography services as a part of my business and we use Nikon equipment. Nikon produces NEF RAW images. I've been opting for DNG as they are a more recognizable image format and Adobe is more apt to support it in their applications than Nikon is with their own format, so it's already serving me very well and I myself applauded Adobe prior to this article =)
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I don't see the majority praising Adobe. In fact, I find their monopoly power as bad as Microsoft's. Add to that their aspirations in quality and efficiency to be only somewhat higher than Microsoft and you get a mediocre company resting on its laurels.
Besides, there are various companies which are willing to provide software to aid the editing of the various hardware-born RAW files.
Perhaps, Sony will incorporate native DNG support into their most basic sensor support firmware, since they're responsible for many of the APS-C sized sensors in digital SLRs.
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While I tend to agree with the general tone of your comment, I am going to say something that may be Heresy here and that is I am not sure that a standard format is the way to go and might actually stifle innovation. I'll use d/ling of movies as an example. Back in the days before the music and fim industry ( aka Mega- corporations) started suing everyone incuding grandmothers, I used to d/l movies. What i saw during this time was a change or evolution in format. Basically it started with 30-40 zip files (winrar) and evolved into a better format ISO.
If we standardize formats this could stifle innovation. What is NEEDED is every format to have the abilty built into it to be change to a format that is usable by the consumer. This, I think would be a better approach than standardization and would still allow innovation to continue.
Maybe I am wrong and I am willing to listen to any reasonable debate on the issue but I throw that idea out here for all to consider.
This does not mean that I support one format over another just like with the movies and the changes in format d/l they Evolved through. It just means that maybe having different formats that can "talk" to one another might actually increase innovation and lead to major breakthroughs.
Just my views and I respect those that differ.
Have a nice day:)
I didn't say anything about Adobe because I feel Adobe is one of those companies that lost it's way in trying to be everything and d0 everything for all people instead of focusing on their core business that once made them a very good company.
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I really do hope Adobe succedes with its DNG thing. Working with different raw files is a pain, thats one. Two, those different raw files can't do half of what DNG format is capable of.
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