DNG again and again and again...

[amolitor]

The only image format I know of that isn't encumbered is png, and I'm not sure about that one.

[AlterEgo]

You're clearly a camera manufacturer. I'm a camera user and customer.

I am camera user and customer who understands why manufacturers do not want to use DNG... and that does not complicate my life, neither the life of majority of photographers (pro & amateurs)... it does complicate life for some people, true... but then the life is not ideal, my life is complicated by Adobe's subscription model, by their so far inefficient switch to GPU support in ACR, but so many other things that DNG is simply a tiny photon in a bright daylight

[amolitor]

I shoot raw and use Nikon's software.

Since I would prefer to continue using it, it follows logically, using Internet Logic, that dropping support would instantly destroy Nikon as all their users fled to Canon.

[AlterEgo]

what proprietary means?

for camera manufacturers it means not being able to modify it as they want w/o necessity to disclose and get approval from a 3rd party and potentially a competitor.... that simple... they do not care about JPG or TIFF because these are purely the end product and they do not foresee a need to have any changes there + there is, unlike with raw files an existing market that simply does not support deviations... while raw, are not only the end product but also still in the middle of their own internal hardware/firmware workflow - so for them this is clearly a different matter, regardless of your opinion... and existing market does actively (with Adobe being in the first place) supports their "proprietary" raws   ... and you support them too, with your $$$ by buying those cameras.... try to imagine a JPG shooter buying a camera that makes incompatible OOC JPG that can't be viewed OOC ? but you do buy cameras w/o DNG ... you are not willing to take a stand, to put your $$$ where your mouth is... so does Michael, etc... he does not even refuse to review non DNG cameras... why ?

[digitaldog]

for camera manufacturers it means not being able to modify it as they want w/o necessity to disclose and get approval from a 3rd party and potentially a competitor....

Thanks for speaking out for all camera manufacturers, I'm sure they are all pleased you're here to speak for them. That was one hell of a long rambling sentence too! Hence the need to cut you off above in 'mid sentence'?
Thankfully we have someone like Michael who speaks as and for photographers and provides this venue to do so.

[digitaldog]

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.

I agree. The document itself. DNG, nope. Or are you confused between the content of a PDF and a DNG?

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.

Well then, you've provided two more sources that prove DNG isn't proprietary.

[amolitor]

Michael's philosophical argument is fallacious. The camera companies are not keeping your pictures in a locked box in any meaningful way.

They make keys freely available. A lock that everyone has a key to is not in any functional way a lock.

[digitaldog]

They make keys freely available. A lock that everyone has a key to is not in any functional way a lock.

If that were true, the day a new camera model is released, everyone could have access to the raw in the software they prefer (like the JPEG the camera creates) but that's clearly not the case!If the keys are made freely available, why do all the 3rd party raw converter companies have to hack the new format? Seems stating the keys are freely available is the philosophical argument that is fallacious.

[amolitor]

You are being deliberately disingenuous because you are in Battle Mode. What I mean, obviously, is that you can convert your raw files to whatever you like.

The capability exists and is not particularly arduous.

[digitaldog]

You are being deliberately disingenuous because you are in Battle Mode. What I mean, obviously, is that you can convert your raw files to whatever you like.

No, I can't as I described. Not as I desire. Not with the products I desire. Yet you can with the JPEG.

The raw file is my image data. As Michael so well expressed. How can anyone justify these data limitations from a camera (for a raw file that doesn't apply for the secondary file the JPEG) illustrates the problem and there's no justification for it as it negatively affects the customer and his data.

[RogerGW]

Proprietary means ownership, but it also means ownership with restricted use.

If that's what the proprietor wants but the latter aspect isn't essential to something's being proprietary. DNG is a perfect example of a proprietary product with great freedoms as to its use. See my #76 for more on DNG's proprietary nature.

> It's like fuchsia is a purplish-red color...

I have no idea what you're on about there, I'm afraid.

> "standard" scale being free and widely available

I didn't say anything about cost. My words about the open-standard quadrant were "Its details are readily available". I welcome debate about what I say but please don't make things up.

> ...proprietary commonly means restricted use.

Again, not necessarily (see above). Also, the makers of proprietary medicine customarily try to /increase/ the use of their products.

> ...in fact it is all too often used in marketing an exclusive feature.

You're proposing marketeers as exemplars of precision in terminology? That's a first.  8=)

> that's what John means about your Flat World

How ironic. I'm the person proposing a two-dimensional view of the area as opposed to the common unidimensional one, yet I'm the one accused of living in a flat world.

Roger

[john beardsworth]

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

Sounds like you buy your understanding of "proprietary" at the pound store, on discount.

[john beardsworth]

By the way, if you want to quote from the DNG specification, read past the first page:

"About This Document
The Digital Negative (DNG) Specification describes a non-proprietary file format for storing
camera raw files that can be used by a wide range of hardware and software vendors."

[dchew]

I didn't say anything about cost. My words about the open-standard quadrant were "Its details are readily available". I welcome debate about what I say but please don't make things up.

I apologize. My mistake.

Dave


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[amolitor]

1. The sensor senses some light. There's your image data. You can't get to it.

2. And then proprietary camera software extracts that from the sensor, and runs it through proprietary camera hardware and firmware to produce a file format. At no point here can you get to your image data.

3. The file format is written to some sort of media, typically. In, typically, a proprietary format.

4. Then you pull that off the media convert that into whatever you like on an external computer, which you are free to do. Now, and only now, can you get at your image data.

The "cameras should support DNG" essentially moves that last step back by one step, from 4 to 3.

This is some sort of important philosophical distinction? Moving the point at which it leaves the cold hard hands of the camera maker back by one step? If it's truly about having access to your precious bits, surely you should be demanding access to the sensor? To the in-camera pipeline? Why is it suddenly a gigantic issue at step 4, but not at step 2?

This is a convenience feature, dressing it up as a philosophical issue is a red herring. A red herring manifestly designed to distract from the issue of 'well, there are legitimate concerns on the camera maker's side, in addition to the legitimate concerns on the camera user's side'.

If there are legitimate concerns on both sides, and it's a relatively minor feature, then there's room for an actual discussion, and ideas like ROI matter. By making it "philosophical" you take that off the table. With is excellent rhetorical technique, until you're busted. Then it kind of falls apart.

[pegelli]

I really wonder if this issue is worth such a heated argument and iron clad opposite positions.

If you want dng just convert your raws to it and you have the file in your desired format, just one minor extra step in your workflow, hardly significant vs. all the other work you're doing to your files. Would it be better if all major brands gave it as an option in their camera, yes of course but I don't think it's anywhere near essential.

In case the painted doomsday scenario plays out (which I do not believe, but my Crystal Ball is worse than Michael's) just keep an old laptop around which can still open or convert the raw file which is no longer supported in the newest converter/OS, or convert to dng before you do your system upgrade.

[michael]

Many issues are essentially philosophical. That doesn't invalidate them, even when at their core the topic is technical.

It comes down to the fact that some companies and people support open standards, while others don't.

Philosophy and practicality intersect.

Michael

[amolitor]

Certainly you can consider this a philosophical issue. By making it one, however, you open the argument up to the methods of philosophical argument.

In this case that produces the question, 'why are you not asking for direct sensor access?'

[AnthonyM]

In general, it is not a good idea to have changes to your business subject to the consent of a third party (although this is sometimes unavoidable).

If a camera maker develops an improvement which makes its products better, but which requires changes to dng to implement, can it amend dng for its use without the permission of Adobe?

[digitaldog]

If a camera maker develops an improvement which makes its products better, but which requires changes to dng to implement, can it amend dng for its use without the permission of Adobe?

I believe that is so but could stand corrected.
There are private tags available in the format. But then it's not a big deal as I attempted to point out with the AlterEgo weak example using Panasonic's special proprietary features. The camera should provide a DNG as an option. I don't know that anyone is suggesting that be the sole format for raw. So in the case of say Panasonic, IF a feature is provided that can only be used in a proprietary raw (which I still doubt), nothing stops the user from asking picking that format instead of DNG.

The DNG proponents just want an option, nothing more. The other side wishes to deny us that option for reasons that make no sense, acting on the side of the camera manufacturers and not on the side of photographers.