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Adobe Proposes New Universal Photo Format

by , 7:20 AM EDT, September 27th, 2004

Adobe Systems announced Monday a new format for digital photos that offers higher-quality, raw images in the hopes more digital camera makers and software companies will support the new standard.

Adobe is proposing that its new Digital Negative Specification, or DNG, become a universal standard for a raw format to save digital images. With DNG, Adobe contends all the original information captured by a digital camera will be saved, thus giving users truer images and more flexibility when editing.

"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."

Most consumer digital cameras today capture images in the JPEG format, which stands for the Joint Photographic Experts group, and was developed in 1986. But because there is no publicly available specifications for JPEG, software and digital camera makers are interpreting those files in many different ways. As a result, Adobe said the use of these proprietary raw files means the best possible quality from every photo is being lost. In addition, that incompatibility has forced users to use multiple software programs to handle raw photos.

Adobe, has also launched a free software tool - the DNG Converter - that will allow users to convert the raw formats from more than 65 cameras into the new format. The converter translates raw formats from more than 65 cameras, including recent models such as Canon PowerShot S60, Epson RD-1, Fujifilm FinePix S20 Pro, and Nikon Coolpix 5400, into the new DNG file format.

The Digital Negative Specification has been posted to Adobe's Web site free of any legal restrictions or royalties, enabling integration of the DNG file format into digital cameras, printers, and software products.

Observer Comments

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View Name:Guest
Subject:
Close Name:Jon Stanard -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 2038 Joined: 27 Jul 2001
Subject:

That would be awesome. I shoot almost 100% RAW, and it would be nice to have some adobe quality and standards in play there.

Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Subject: Open Standard

Well, although I'm sure the quality is good, the real benefit of this is the fact that they gave it away. Anyone can use this, free of charge. That means that your photos will still (likely) be usuable by other programs decades from now, even if Adobe goes out of business.

More:
http://luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/dng.shtml

View Name:Guest
Subject: other formats
Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Subject: Re: other formats

Quote
Anonymous wrote:
What about TIFF?


Not quite the same thing as a RAW file, which is what this Adobe format is looking to replace. I'm sure TIFFs will still be useful alongside this new format, as it's meant to be an aquisition format. I imagine TIFFs will still be useful in the manipulation of photos.

View Name:Guest
Subject: ignorance
Close Name:Jon Stanard -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 2038 Joined: 27 Jul 2001
Subject:

TIFF is a format used by MANY graphic programs for images. It is a fairly universal format which is typically higher quality, and does not (usually) use compression.

RAW is a generic term for whatever format a digital camera (if it has the ability to) uses to save the image in "RAW" form, where the camera does NOT process the image. Instead you use the camera maker's software or photoshop to manually process the image, and for people who know what they are doing the results are usually superior.

Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Subject: RAW vs. TIFF

Let's see...

A RAW file is the actual data that comes in from the camera's CCD. It's not really an image yet...it has to be interpreted by some kind of software first. Ok, I know that doesn't sound that different from other images. Here's the point:

When you import a RAW file into a computer, you can STILL alter things like the color balance. This is NOT the same thing as color-correcting a photo. You see, a JPEG is highly compressed and a TIFF less so, but a JPEG and a TIFF ARE BOTH PHOTOS. A RAW file is not a photo yet...not until something TURNS IT INTO a photo. During that turning-into process, you can still alter things.

I don't know if that really explains it...I'm not an engineer, so this is about as much as I understand too.

The basic idea is that TIFFs are large files that would be difficult to use as a capture format. RAW files are also large, but they are a bit more managable because they are NOT YET PHOTOS. Your computer has to take that file and turn it INTO a photo later.

That's the difference. As small as the difference seems, it does matter.

Close Name:algr Posts: 294 Joined: 07 Aug 2003
Subject:

A RAW file is the actual data that comes in from the camera's CCD.

I thought that "Raw" just meant "uncompressed" If what you say is true, then you are going to have some serious compatibility problems with RAW.

In one-chip cameras, all of the pixels will only contain data from a single color channel. This is usually RGB, but the arrangement of the pixels will be different from different cameras, so how do you know what pixel is what color? Some of Sony's cameras add a fourth color "Emerald" to the Red Green and Blue. Other cameras (will?) have pixels of different sizes - small ones capture less light and thus can see highlight detail, while larger ones can see into the shadows.

Three chip cameras sometimes "stagger" the pixels, and sometimes don't. And who knows what behaviors Foiven's X3 chip might have.

Does photoshop know how to deal with all this stuff?

Close Name:Jon Stanard -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 2038 Joined: 27 Jul 2001
Subject:

Yes, photoshop knows how to deal with it. Photoshop CS Supports MOST digital cameras, and is updated for new ones all the time.

I think the reason Adobe is pushing this is to simplify this process for themselves.

Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Subject:

As Jon says, Photoshop knows.

But you're RIGHT algr! There ARE many different kinds of RAW data! It's a pain for Adobe to keep up with them all, and it's scary for you if your camera is the only one that uses a particular KIND of RAW file. Maybe most RAW files will be remembered for years, but if yours is forgotten that does you no good.

Adobe wants everyone to adopt their format so there's a bit more consistancy. From a user's perspective it seems like RAW is good...but for a software engineer there are actually many kinds they have to worry about making work.

They're doing that for now, but I can see why they don't want to have to do that forever.

Close Name:algr Posts: 294 Joined: 07 Aug 2003
Subject:

Yes, photoshop knows how to deal with it.

I find it hard to believe that Adobe is really building notes on every new twist in CCD design into photoshop. If this were the case, then the new Sony RGB+E cameras would not work (in raw mode) on any version of photoshop before this year. Not to mention any other program that imports photos. (iPhoto, for example.)

It seems more likely to me that the cameras are converting sensor data to some standardized form of RGB, and the computers are picking it up from there.

Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Subject:

Well I never said EVERY single camera is unique. I really don't know how many...just that there is more than one kind of RAW file.

There could be 3, or 30. I only know a little bit about this stuff.

View Name:Guest
Subject: how RAW works
View Name:Guest
Subject: Don't we have enough 'Universal' formats already?
Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Subject: Re: Don't we have enough 'Universal' formats already?

Quote
Anonymous wrote:

Adobe is delusional if they think that their format will never be altered. Specifications... yea, right. How many formats have specifications that have already been altered? The idea is nice, but it's full of holes.


If it DOES become popular in the short run, then all they have to do is to stop adding support for other "new" formats in Photoshop.

Who would dare make a camera that records in some new format which Photoshop can't read.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot about this...what about PDFs? Those seem pretty popular.

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