DNG again and again and again...

[digitaldog]

Bold move, digitaldog. Trying to argue that people who disagree with you actually have no right to speak.

They have the right to argue and thus speak. Making up facts, speculating? Not useful if you're trying to convince the other side to your POV.
You have every right to make up stuff or guess, we have every right to ignore it as baseless. At least until you can prove the point. So far, you've done none of this.

[dchew]

Can you really make your proprietary software go away, or does it just need to also support DNG now?

There is also a cost to end of life-ing a product.

It's turtles all the way down.

Sure you can make it go away, and of course there is a cost to ending a product. But not nearly as high as keeping it going. And there is no revenue from these proprietary software products. Zilch.

[barryfitzgerald]

A universal raw format would make a lot of sense. I had hope DNG would gain more traction it's a slow process
I do use lossy DNG quite a bit to save HDD space and it's fine for most jobs

[jrsforums]

Bold move, digitaldog. Trying to argue that people who disagree with you actually have no right to speak.

Insane, but bold.

Nah, it's a Schewe-ism

It's like the artist that says true intellectuals will "get" what he is saying.  To say you don't get it....well....

[Schewe]

Nah, it's a Schewe-ism

Don't bring me into this useless thread...

[RogerGW]

I'm not inferring such a solution...

Of course you are, by suggesting I advocate storing data "in a format no company owns, like JPEG". I've advocated nothing beyond greater precision in the use of terms, something you seem determined to avoid.

> I'm simply saying that DNG isn't proprietary.

Argument by assertion. Doesn't work, I'm afraid.

And resorting to Wikipedia to prop up an argument is a sign of desperation. It's Gresham's Law applied to information.

Roger

[john beardsworth]

> I'm simply saying that DNG isn't proprietary.
Argument by assertion. Doesn't work, I'm afraid.

And you would know, wouldn't you, because your assertion that it's proprietary is on a par with claiming the earth is flat. When you're in a hole, stop digging. Whatever your other issues with it, it's just not a proprietary format.

[dchew]

Roger,
Your axis don't make sense to me. Proprietary means ownership, but it also means ownership with restricted use. It's like fuchsia is a purplish-red color, and you are using the "color" part of its description, then claiming brown is fuchsia because they are both colors.

And as far as the "standard" scale being free and widely available, really? Please send me an ISO 12232 standard. A bit expensive to buy isn't it! The DNG standard is a whole lot cheaper.

The use of the term proprietary commonly means restricted use. In fact it is all too often used in marketing to describe an exclusive feature. You may not like that, but that's what John means about your Flat World.

Dave

[bokehcambodia]

DNG conversion of raw files (and storing both) after import is crucial to the workflow imho.

Camera makers might think (or at least in the early 2000s) that they could lock customers into their ecosystem (so to speak of) and keep them in their developing app. I bet there are many amateurs/hobbyists that read the manual, pop the disc in and install the crappy apps that come with the cameras?! Not the readers of this site, but the general consumer that never heard of Lightroom... but then do they use RAW? No, but all the filters, effects, that comes with these apps.
A total fail from camera makers and their pride to not change course.

What about a standard/consortium like we have when HDMI, 1080p etc. get established? It can be hard, just look what's going on now with 4k delivery of content and the Blue-Ray specs finally out.

CaNikon and Sony wake up on this!

[jrsforums]

Don't bring me into this useless thread...

  Sorry 

[michael]

So much speculation.... so little factual knowledge.

So much pissy commentary aimed at one-upping the other guy.

As predicted this thread has gone off the rails and I''m tempted to shut it down. Next gratuitous insult aimed at anyone and I will.

But, since I have the floor for a moment, a few comments.

DNG is free. It was developed by Adobe but it has been offered to the ISO as an open standard.

DNG is fully capable of supporting new features without being altered. This was anticipated in its architecture by Thomas Knoll, its author, from the beginning. DNG is designed to be extensible in this regard. Talk to Thomas. He'll explain it.

There already are orphaned raw formats (Casio is but one example). There will be more. Some raw formats are actually encrypted. Isn't it comforting to know that these companies therefore regard your images as theirs, not yours?

For the purposes of this discussion I don't care about DNG as a long terms storage format. That's a red herring and not part of what I wrote about in my article.

The motivations of the major camera companies in maintaining proprietary raw formats has nothing to do with money or engineering issues. It actually costs them more to pay programmers and third party house than to use an open standard. It has to do with corporate hubris. Sit with the managers and engineers and drink sake for an evening or two, as I have,  and you'll understand that the perpetuation of these formats has zero to do with cost or engineering issues. It's about corporate pride. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply speculating or just plain making it up.

I repeat. Hubris and Pride. Our images are held in formats which are the sole property of single companies. Remember the phrase... "Trust me, I'm from the government"? Well, I don't like the phrase, "Trust me, I'm from Canon" any better.

Finally, this has nothing whatever to do with my accessing raw files before third party support is available. I simply set white balance in the manufacturer's software then batch export to 16 bit TIFF. No big deal. This is about a moral principal, not one person's personal inconvenience.

Here's my best analogy. My image files are mine. I created them. I don't want them put them in a locked box that requires a key, even if there are keys available from others. I want the box not to have a lock on it at all, because over time keys get lost and locks rust.

No locks on my files please. They're mine. Sorry if it hurts your ego to give them to me in a plain box, but I'm much happier that way than in the fancy box you prefer. Sorry. That's not in my best interest, and guess what. I'm the customer.

Michael

[Damon Lynch]

No locks on my files please. They're mine.

Michael, is this what you want? -

• The freedom to open the RAW data in programs of your choosing (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how most (all?) of the RAW data is stored by the camera (freedom 1). Access to the manufacturer specs is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to transform on your computer or in your camera the camera RAW data into an ISO standard format (e.g. DNG) without losing any nontrivial data (freedom 2).
• The freedom to distribute copies of how you transformed your RAW data with others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source and destination file format specs and the precise transformations made on them are a precondition for this.

It seems to me that these freedoms are mutually interdependent, i.e. to have freedom 0 you need the others too.

If these four freedoms ring a bell, it's because I have derived them from the those advocated by the Free Software Foundation. As a quick glance makes clear, the freedoms as I have outlined them here are considerably more restricted than the originals.

[AlterEgo]

DNG is free. It was developed by Adobe but it has been offered to the ISO as an open standard.

it is not - there is a price you pay, namely - you have to get Adobe to agree to your changes, you have to wait for Adobe to implement changes, you have to share you information with competition and you have to redo code on your side

DNG is fully capable of supporting new features without being altered.

so does any other raw format, as they mostly tiffs - that is not the root of your issues

There already are orphaned raw formats (Casio is but one example).

well, as you studied the issue - you claim that Casion was never supported by any 3rd party raw converter, never ever ? how about that = http://www.inweb.ch/foto/rawformat.html ? and those are not raw formats - that's just one raw format, one

There will be more. Some raw formats are actually encrypted. Isn't it comforting to know that these companies therefore regard your images as theirs, not yours?

Adobe regards my parametric edits in ACR as theirs - how about that ?

The motivations of the major camera companies in maintaining proprietary raw formats has nothing to do with money or engineering issues. It actually costs them more to pay programmers and third party house than to use an open standard.

so your camera's firmware will be magically written/tested/etc by whom ? it does not matter whether you are using a different tiff flavor... for your internal technical team your non DNG is as open as DNG... no difference, but one - you still have to spend money rewriting/retesting your code to make output DNG

[AlterEgo]

Our images are held in formats which are the sole property of single companies.

formats are tiffs, you are referring to non disclosure of the tag usage, whereas that the usage is known (and document in a freely available code for eternity) for a lot of 3rd party converters to successfully work regards of this ever repeated smoke-mirros-doom-gloom-fud... and btw so are your parametric edits in LR, the sole property of Adobe... that somehow does not bother you at all

Remember the phrase... "Trust me, I'm from the government"? Well, I don't like the phrase, "Trust me, I'm from Canon" any better.

trust me, I am from Adobe  

[scooby70]

When I got my A7 I was an early adopter and of course I had to use the bundled software and I hated it and I didn't like the results and I actually thought I'd made a big mistake buying the camera.

Had anyone been looking over my shoulder, seeing what was going on on my screen and listening to my frustrated rants I'm pretty sure any thought of buying an A7 would have vanished from their mind.

I do wish that the manufacturers would just stop it and adopt DNG.

[AlterEgo]

A universal raw format would make a lot of sense.

it already exists - tiff... what is missing is the formal disclosure of the tag usage by cameras manufacturers, while informal exists and will not disappear, never ever... and that informal information is as sufficient as DNG itself.

[RogerGW]

And you would know, wouldn't you, because your assertion that it's proprietary is on a par with claiming the earth is flat. When you're in a hole, stop digging. Whatever your other issues with it, it's just not a proprietary format.

Blimey! Do you buy your clichés wholesale?

Here's the notice at the top of the Adobe document, "Digital Negative (DNG) Specification", version 1.4.0.0, dated June 2012:

"All information contained herein is the property of Adobe Systems Incorporated. No part of this publication (whether in hardcopy or electronic form) may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of Adobe Systems Incorporated."

Sounds pretty proprietary to me.

Here are the relevant definitions of "proprietary" from a couple of reputable sources:

1. Merrian -Webster -- something that is used, produced, or marketed under exclusive legal right of the inventor or maker

2, Oxford English Dictionary -- Belonging to a proprietor or proprietors; owned or held as property; held in private ownership.

(And, by publishing the specification, Adobe have of course also made DNG open.)

Roger

[AlterEgo]

DNG isn't proprietary in it's an open format

you can't extend it in a manner that suits you (only in a manner that suits Adobe)... again optics corrections introduced by Panasonic is a prime example.

[AlterEgo]

Sure. Try decoding various Casio raw files from the mid-2000's.

Michael

one format - and which camera ? please name one model as an example so that we can switch to specifics

[digitaldog]

Of course you are, by suggesting I advocate storing data "in a format no company owns, like JPEG".

No, I've suggested nothing of the sort BTW. I asked you what file format you're advocating if any (we do need something).
TIFF like DNG is owned and controlled by Adobe so while you're way off base about what proprietary means, just what file format are you OK with and suggest? PSD is out of the question, talk about proprietary file formats.

Argument by assertion. Doesn't work, I'm afraid.

Zero assertion, just facts.

And resorting to Wikipedia to prop up an argument is a sign of desperation. It's Gresham's Law applied to information.

Just Wikipedia or any site I supply that disagrees with your idea of what proprietary means? Just trying to figure out if you're interested in a real debate and expression of ideas of you've made up your mind that no matter what outside reference is applied, in your mind, it's just a sign of desperation. If so, like so many of these silly debates, I'll ignore you. AOK with me.