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musical musical

Is from: north-central, US
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musical Registered since 11th Feb 2010
Tue 20-Sep-11 04:27 AM
A survey: Does anyone dislike the dng negative in particular? I am thinking, that 100% of everyone with a dslr and serious interest loves raw and really likes the dng. Is that a hasty assumption? See what I mean, the dng format is perfect... or is it perfect? Pretend that file space doesn't matter at all; pretend that's not an issue.
Any sort of response is interesting to me, technical or blunt answers. I'm writing a short essay.


"Close Your Eyes and See With Your Heart." />a quote by Canadian writer Kerri MacDonald.
esantos esantos

Is from: McAllen, US
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#1. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 0

esantos Gold Member Nikonians Resources Writer. Recognized for his outstanding reviews on printers and printing ... Awarded for his high level of expertise in various areas, including Landscape Photography Awarded for his extraordinary accomplishments in Landscape Photography. His work has been ex... Winner of the Best of Nikonians Images 2018 Annual Photo Contest Nikonian since 10th Nov 2002
Tue 20-Sep-11 08:02 AM
I have rather neutral feelings about DNG, actually. I neither love it nor hate it. But for someone who has a lot of raw files to manage and contend with adding another process to your workflow can be a bummer. Something inside me tells me I should convert all my 10,000 or so NEFs but I can never find the time and when I consider the prospects it seems daunting. Then I could take the position that hence forth I will convert all future files to DNG but when I return from a shoot I once again never find the time to get this task done. All my available time is spent archiving the NEFs, processing master files, optimizing for web display, updating my website, making prints, etc., etc. The bottom line for me is that until Nikon and Canon adopt the DNG format (which is unlikely) it will never come into the mainstream.

Ernesto Santos
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gkaiseril gkaiseril

Is from: Forest Park, US
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#2. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 0

gkaiseril Registered since 28th Oct 2005
Tue 20-Sep-11 09:58 AM
I expect it is pretty much an assumption.

The manufacturers tweak their RAW for their cameras. DNG tries to be a jack of all trades. If Nikon drops or discontinues NEF, then DNG might be a good long term alternative. I do not think most will convert to DNG as part of their work flow unless there were more of a benefit besides possible long term archiving format.

The DNG format is not an ISO standard, so Adobe has complete control of format design. Adobe has only offered the DNG format for use as an international standard.

George
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musical musical

Is from: north-central, US
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#3. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 2

musical Registered since 11th Feb 2010
Tue 20-Sep-11 03:07 PM
--ISO standard?
I suppose I should look it up, but it seems I never heard of it.
I better be careful or this could get complex.

--I assume that nikon doesn't do nef for any artistic reason, just for asserting their brand?


>The DNG format is not an ISO standard,


so Adobe has complete
>control of format design. Adobe has only offered the DNG
>format for use as an international standard.
briantilley briantilley

Is from: Paignton, UK
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#4. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 3

briantilley Silver Member Deep knowledge of bodies and lens; high level photography skills Donor Ribbon awarded for his support to the Fundraising Campaign 2014 Nikonian since 26th Jan 2003
Tue 20-Sep-11 03:15 PM | edited Tue 20-Sep-11 03:19 PM by briantilley

The International Organisation for Standards (ISO) is an independent global body that formulates and agrees standards for use in many walks of life. Perhaps the most familiar to us photographers are the film speed / sensor sensitivity definitions, which we know as "ISO".

The DNG definition comes from a commercial entity (Microsoft) as does the NEF definition (Nikon); neither can be called "standards" as such.

Brian
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gkaiseril gkaiseril

Is from: Forest Park, US
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#5. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 4

gkaiseril Registered since 28th Oct 2005
Tue 20-Sep-11 07:02 PM
You might find Extend : Digital Negative (DNG) and DNG of interest.

The DNG format is used by some camera manufacturers as their RAW format.

Adobe has made all the documentation and SDK, System Developers Kit, publicly available.

Adobe also made the PDF a publicly available format and later offered it to ISO to be used as an ISO standard. This has resulted in ISO standards 19005-1:2005 (PDF/A-1) and ISO 32000-1 (PDF/A-2) for archival PDFs.

George
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barrywesthead barrywesthead

Is from: Toronto, CA
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#6. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 0

barrywesthead Awareded for his continued support of the Nikonians community, freely sharing his expertise,... Registered since 06th Nov 2006
Wed 21-Sep-11 03:36 AM
I have never seen an advantage to converting from NEF to DNG.

Images that make the trip to photoshop are kept as psd's, anything printed is exported to tiff for printing (then deleted), and anything distributed digitally is exported to tiff or jpeg (and usually deleted after transmission). The rest are NEF's.

Barry
http://art2printimages.com
gkaiseril gkaiseril

Is from: Forest Park, US
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#7. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 6

gkaiseril Registered since 28th Oct 2005
Wed 21-Sep-11 06:53 AM | edited Wed 21-Sep-11 09:41 AM by gkaiseril
DNG is Adobe's answer to the concept of an Open RAW format or a universal RAW format used by all.

It would let you obtain a format for transferring your NEF images to a product that can not read your NEF but can read the DNG. For example, with the latest DNG converter you can convert your D7000 NEF to a DNG and CS2, CS3, or CS4 could edit the DNG just like any RAW image. By doing this you do not need to update you Adobe editor with every major version release by Adobe or you can delay you upgrade to a later date but edit your new camera's NEF.

Its purpose would be for a very long term archival format that could be independent of a specific processing program since all programs would be able to use this format.

George
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adangus

Is from: Franktown, US
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#8. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 0

adangus Silver Member Nikonian since 02nd Jan 2009
Thu 22-Sep-11 07:28 AM
Here is my concern with DNG. If it is a universal raw format, then at the time a camera-specific NEF (or Canon raw or whatever) file is converted to DNG, Adobe Camera Raw has baked in its raw conversion profile for the camera being used. There should not be any trace of the original camera profile to impact any down-stream raw conversion.

I have experimented with this a bit. For example, I've taken a NEF and converted it to DNG through LR3 using the built-in Adobe standard profile. Then I repeat the conversion using a special profile created with the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport system. Now I have two distinct DNGs for the same original capture based on two different conversion profiles. I can deliver those two DNGs to LR3 running on another computer, and as you might expect they open up with the relatively muddy colors of the Adobe standard profile or the much better colors of the calibrated X-Rite profile, respectively. In this way, it's apparent that the two different profile conversions have been applied at the time the DNG was made.

On the matter of bit depth, I can say that a typical experiment for NEF conversion to DNG or TIFF works out as follows for captures from my D700 with uncompressed 14-bit files. The original NEF will be around 15MB, the DNG (without embedding the original RAW file) will be 13MB, and the TIFF will be 72MB. As a result, my impression is that the DNG conversion is applying some compression. If I enable the "embed original file" option, the size increases to around 28MB or so, consistent with the DNG file storing both the 13MB DNG conversion and the original NEF.

I suppose if one were concerned about not losing the original NEF, one could do a conversion that embedded it; but then I truly fail to see the value of creating the DNG. Likewise, if one wanted to hold out for a superior raw converter down the road, I fail to see why one would bake-in the current Adobe Camera Raw conversion available today by using DNG only. For example, I recently began using Phase 1's Capture One v6 and was significantly impressed by how much better it was than ACR even with the X-Rite camera calibrations for my old NEFs. At this point, I was quite pleased that I hadn't DNG'd my NEFs (if that isn't too much acronym soup...)

As a result of these data points, I've concluded that DNG isn't for me personally.

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gkaiseril gkaiseril

Is from: Forest Park, US
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#9. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 8

gkaiseril Registered since 28th Oct 2005
Thu 22-Sep-11 08:08 AM
You are aware that with the free DNG converter, one can include the original NEF as an attachement within the DNG. One can also extract the NEF if needed.

Since Adobe still has all the control of the foramt and documentation and the ISO group has not acted on Adobe's offer, this is far from a universal RAW format or even an Open RAW. That being said, right now it is the only game in town.

George
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Zevi Zevi

Is from: Ann Arbor, US
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#10. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 0

Zevi Registered since 20th Feb 2008
Fri 23-Sep-11 06:59 AM
Some are objecting the concept of DNG on a philosophical basis, as they view Adobe as an over-controling and invasive entity. Aside from that issue, I'm personally quite neutral about DNG.

However, as I understand it, there is one major benefit to DNG (please correct me if I'm wrong): RAW files do not retain your post-processing work, while DNG do. if you PP and store your files in LR, all the post processing is retained in a separate file that is linked through the database to the RAW (or NEF) file, so that your changes are properly displayed on the screen.

At some point I made a grave mistake of using the finder to move and re-arrange some files (instead of doing it from within LR). What I discovered shortly after, was that I lost all my PP work on these files, since I broke the link between the RAW files and these other linked files.

Since then, I usually convert the RAW files to DNG upon importing them to LR, so that even if they are moved around later -- the PP work is still retained by the DNG.

The truth is, that I have not experimented with "do I really retain the PP work in DNG if I move files around in the finder". I'll be interested to hear if anyone has any experience to support or refute this.

Cheers,
Zevi

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gkaiseril gkaiseril

Is from: Forest Park, US
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#11. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 10

gkaiseril Registered since 28th Oct 2005
Fri 23-Sep-11 07:23 AM
Nikon Capture NX 2 does save the edit changes as part of the Maker Note in the EXIF data. Adobe can save the edit settings either in the EXIF or as a sidecar file. The Adobe PSD format allows for the saving of editing changes.

I think the saving of the edit settings is more a function of the software. You should also be aware that most software does not save back to the original RAW format. Nikon Capture NX 2 can save the edits back to the NEF. Adobe needs to change the format to the PSD or DNG formats. It is also important to realize that the Adobe products do not read the in camera settings recorded by the camera within the Maker Note section of the EXIF data.

George
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Zevi Zevi

Is from: Ann Arbor, US
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#12. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 11

Zevi Registered since 20th Feb 2008
Fri 23-Sep-11 07:52 AM
George,

Yes, all that you say is true and correct, but I was talking about DNG within the context of LR. I might be wrong, but I assumed that the OP asked about DNG within the realm of Adobe products (is there any reason to consider DNG for NX?)

Also, it is true what you say about NEF and NX. In fact, one of the things I realized a while ago, was that if one shoots in RAW and does not use NX (such as myself, as I use LR), the in-camera processing is useless, and unless you need to immediately hand out jpegs -- recording in this format is a waste of space.

Cheers,
Zevi

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gkaiseril gkaiseril

Is from: Forest Park, US
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#13. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 12

gkaiseril Registered since 28th Oct 2005
Fri 23-Sep-11 09:44 AM
The photo industry has not only seen the discontinuance of many Kodak film products but also the loss of the Kodak digital image format. There are still converters available for the Kodak CD and
their format.

Adobe has offered the DNG format for use as more than just a different Adobe format. Will the DNG be a universal format that could be embraced by serious photographers?

There are a number of cameras that use DNG as their RAW format.

There are also a number of software programs that can save their output as DNG files. Some of these programs are from the camera manufacturers that use the DNG format but there are also 3rd party programs that can read and write or just write the DNG format.

I do not if this software also preserves the edited settings would need more research. I also do know if the MakerNote data for the cameras that use DNG as their RAW format are processed by any software other than the manufacturer. A quick check of the EXIF tags shows that Pentax has MakerNote tags but Hasselblad appears not to have any.

Products that support DNG in some way Barry Peterson

The hesitance of serious photographers to fully embrace the DNG format is that all the possible problems facing the NEF format still apply to the DNG. Many have stated as much as the DNG format may become universal, they do not see the need for the extra step, processing time and storage space for a possible universal format or Nikon not supporting the NEF format. And this is Even considering the cameras and software that supports the DNG format.

George
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pdekman pdekman

Is from: Swisher, US
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#14. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 8

pdekman Winner in The Nikonians 10th Anniversary Photo Contest Awarded as a regular contributor who offers in-depth knowledge to members who are interested... Winner in the Annual Nikonians Best Images Contest 2015 Donor Ribbon awarded for the contribution to the 2016 campaign Registered since 16th Nov 2005
Fri 23-Sep-11 03:30 PM
>Here is my concern with DNG. If it is a universal raw format,
>then at the time a camera-specific NEF (or Canon raw or
>whatever) file is converted to DNG, Adobe Camera Raw has baked
>in its raw conversion profile for the camera being used.

This surprises me. Are you sure the DNG has baked in the profile, or did the raw convertor simply use the different profile as a starting point?

Paul
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pdekman pdekman

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#15. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 10

pdekman Winner in The Nikonians 10th Anniversary Photo Contest Awarded as a regular contributor who offers in-depth knowledge to members who are interested... Winner in the Annual Nikonians Best Images Contest 2015 Donor Ribbon awarded for the contribution to the 2016 campaign Registered since 16th Nov 2005
Fri 23-Sep-11 03:49 PM
Hi Zevi -

Be aware that while moving files around outside of LR is not the preferred method, your PP work is still retained in the LR catalog. Simply pointing back to the original image file restores the link with no loss of data.

Paul
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adangus

Is from: Franktown, US
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#16. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 9

adangus Silver Member Nikonian since 02nd Jan 2009
Tue 27-Sep-11 12:17 PM
I'm not sure if you were replying to my post or not. If you were, then I am aware that the NEF can be embedded, with the impact on the size of the resulting file that I pointed out.

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adangus

Is from: Franktown, US
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#17. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 14

adangus Silver Member Nikonian since 02nd Jan 2009
Tue 27-Sep-11 12:26 PM
I believe that it has had to do so, certainly in the case in which the NEF is not embedded. If it did not perform a "universal" conversion from every possible RAW beginning file, whether from a Nikon, Canon, Leica, Pentax or whatever, then where would the value in the DNG lie? The result can only be source-independent if the original source is no longer in question or relevant at all for any down-stream processing.

This has to mean that at the time the DNG is created, from whatever original camera file, some conversion process is applied to mathematically alter the original RGB values to new ones that are consistent with DNG. Otherwise, alternative RAW processors, say Apple's Aperture to pick one for instance, would then have to manage some hybrid conversion methods for DNGs originally sourced from a Canon 5D as opposed to those from a Nikon D3. That can't be true. If it were, what would the point be in DNG at all?

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pdekman pdekman

Is from: Swisher, US
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#18. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 17

pdekman Winner in The Nikonians 10th Anniversary Photo Contest Awarded as a regular contributor who offers in-depth knowledge to members who are interested... Winner in the Annual Nikonians Best Images Contest 2015 Donor Ribbon awarded for the contribution to the 2016 campaign Registered since 16th Nov 2005
Tue 27-Sep-11 05:06 PM
But, if DNG conversion makes significant processing decisions at time of conversion, how can it be a viable raw format that allows for non-destructive editing?

I don't use DNG so I don't know the answer, but I assumed that the unprocessed sensor data was collected from the original raw file - along with whatever metadata is available/appropriate - and all this was put in an openly documented file structure. Down-stream processing would then be left to your preferred raw convertor as we do today with NEFs. If I were to open a DNG file and find that the color translation had already been accomplished and is now 'fixed' for that image, then I'm not interested.

Paul
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walkerr walkerr

Is from: Colorado Springs, US
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#19. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 17

walkerr Awarded for his con tributed articles published at the Resources Awarded for his in-depth knowledge in multiple areas Master Ribbon awarded as a member who has gone beyond technical knowledge to show mastery of... Donor Ribbon awarded for his most generous support to the Fundraising Campaign 2015 Donor Ribbon awarded for the generous contribution to the 2014 campaign Registered since 05th May 2002
Tue 27-Sep-11 08:06 PM
It's not "baked in". It's just applied, and it can easily changed to another one later on. If it was "baked in", I would have been unable to update my older DNGs with newer color profiles and the newer, 2010 processing standard.

Rick Walker

My photos:

GeoVista Photography

Sportymonk Sportymonk

Is from: Rocky Mount, US
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#20. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 0

Sportymonk Registered since 16th Jul 2007
Thu 24-Nov-11 12:09 PM | edited Thu 24-Nov-11 01:25 PM by Sportymonk
1) Scott Kelby promotes DNG as it is smaller and more space efficient. That concerns me as the compression of the file may indicate s small loss of data.
2) I changed some files from NEF to DNG and frankly didn't see a significant decrease in size so so much for smaller more efficient.
3) I really don't see Nikon forsaking their proprietary NEF format, at least not without some form of conversion tool for the trillions of photos already in the NEF format.
4) Once converted strictly to DNG, you have lost the ability to work in NEF specific tools. You are <edited to remove the word "not"> committed to the Adobe world.
5) If you convert to DNG with NEF embedded, the files get really huge, again so much for the space advantage.

In the end, I don't see an advantage to DNG. I keep everything in NEF (except for a handful of files I converted to DNG only format and now can't change back). I prefer to stick with NEF as I just don't see an advantage. Does anybody think Nikon will forsake the NEF format and leave us stranded?

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barrywesthead barrywesthead

Is from: Toronto, CA
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#21. "RE: dng as opposed to?" | In response to Reply # 20

barrywesthead Awareded for his continued support of the Nikonians community, freely sharing his expertise,... Registered since 06th Nov 2006
Thu 24-Nov-11 01:22 PM

>3) I really don't see Nikon forsaking their proprietary NEF
>format, at least not without some form of conversion tool for
>the trillions of photos already in the NEF format.
>4) Once converted strictly to DNG, you have lost the ability
>to work in NEF specific tools. You are not committed to the
>Adobe world.
>

I agree 100%.

Barry
http://art2printimages.com

G