Adobe Releasing New Photo Format 422
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.
Customer oriented naming (Score:5, Insightful)
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*
Re:I can't remember... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why? (Score:1, Insightful)
The information they're talking about retaining is, as the article puts it, before camera processing to retain truer to the capture image.
Re:what are the benefits? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
JPEG-2000? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)
I await more information and a working open-source library...wake me when it's ready.
Re:I fail to see... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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
What a stupid name (Score:4, Insightful)
The images stored in ths format will not be negatives (i.e. inverted) anyway, contrary to what the name means and suggests.
Re:Hopefully... (Score:5, Insightful)
Preservation of digital photography in RAW formats is an ugly challenge and kudos to Adobe for taking the lead in a very serious issue. This is not a marketing ploy - in fact, if you understand the effort you'll see it's a very open attempt, and in some ways will be subsidized by Adobe - for instance, their DNG Converter will continue to provide the capability to convert any RAW format they support into DNG, leaving other DNG developers to focus on the act of processing DNG images and not on reverse engineering every new model camera's RAW format.
If I see one more "what's wrong with PNG" post... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
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....
Re:What a stupid name (Score:5, Insightful)
In this sense, negative is the ideal name.
Re:Customer oriented naming (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is that superfluous? I bet you law enforcement would JUMP at a digital file format where they have an encapsulated proof within an image that the image has not been adultrated, as would insurance companies and such, and many other uses I can think of. Heck, as a photographer, I'd like it for protecting my own copyright.
This actually does make sense, odd as it sounds. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
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?
do you know what you're talking about? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Why this is a good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
DNG will be an open standard (Score:1, Insightful)
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
proggy is out (Score:1, Insightful)
Adobe technology is well thought out (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Sensor data - 12 bits per pixel (Score:1, Insightful)
I support Adobe's move, but only if it is an open standard.
Re:Customer oriented naming (Score:3, Insightful)
*Sigh* - you can do reasonably tamper-proof harware, so that it would be pretty much impossible to get at the cryptographic photo-signing module without letting it destroy itself. But you miss the point.
Court evidence is all based on a chain of custody. Cop A stands up and says "I collected empty casings from the scene and placed them in a bag labelled "blah", and gave them to examiner B. B says " I recieved 3 casings in a bag labelled blah, examined them under the microscope, and saw something else".
If you can produce a reasonable chain-of-custody method for digital photos, you don't need crypto in the camera.
Re:Why? (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Rant much? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
this is a sensor data format specification, really (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
It's not bad, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:I like my photo formats RAW (Score:3, Insightful)
The biggest advantage digital cameras give you over film is the flexability to NOT get it right the first time. Aside from the power to take a large number of shots to experiment with ideas you wouldn't otherwise give the time of day, it also allows you to fix things you didn't notice when you did take the image. If you just want to shoot once and hope it turns out the way you imagined, don't bother getting a dslr.
A lot can be done to process an image after capturing it, and the extra few bits of information make a huge difference in the final quality of the image. Add into the equation a sharper image and better color (jpgs seem to 'compress' the red channel more than others...). Not to mention the advantage it gives you if you decide to work in a colorspace other than sRGB (ie: more accurate color when transforming to the printer's colorspace).
Re:Great idea. Some info. (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that the fundamental data isn't standardized -- the RAW data is the signal straight from the CCD, and that's very different depending on the specifics of the CCD. For example, some high-end cameras have three separate CCD's (much, much clearer image, particularly in low light), Fuji CCD's are just weird, etc. So the RAW formats are all very proprietary, not only per manufacturer, but even for each specific camera model.
So TIFF is a good starting point (it's very flexible), but all of the details would have to be defined.