Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!
I don't have an A850, but the same is true of all DNG files created from native raw files:Is there any downside to converting A850 raw's to Dng.
Processing my image files in Lightroom or Camera Raw, whether I use a native raw or a DNG file from any of my cameras produces exactly the same results with the same parameter settings.Thanks
I was concerned if there was any quality loss. In the case of a a850 raw, the file size is less than 1/2 the original raw.
Looks like another Open Source advocacy page. LibRaw ... who the heck is that? Their "About LibRaw" page doesn't say anything about who "iexa" is.DNG may not be exactly archival, if you want to get deep into it: http://www.libraw.org/articles/2-ways-to-nowhere.html
DNG is a publicly disclosed standard, accessible to anyone with no license fees in perpetuity. Read the license on http://www.adobe.com/dng/ where you can also download the specifications. If that's not an "open" standard, what is? Even an Open Source project requires a statement and license.Do a search on here or PM Hardloaf for his views on why DNGs are bad. I've gone back and forth and for now I use native raw files for working and backup and DNG for archiving. Some things to keep in mind is that DNG is available online and available to anyone, but it is owned by Adobe. It is not an open standard, don't be confused about that. Further, Adobe is the only software that really seems to support DNG, but all software seem to support native raws.
As I said, I choose not to debate the politics of this. I didn't find anything in that article, including the incorrect bits, that I haven't seen a dozen times before.You're tugging on Superman's cape a bit in regards to Andrey, Lexi and Iliah. You're talking about a few of the most prominent, knowledgeble leaders in the RAW development community.
We can certainly discuss whether converting to DNG shows any practical difference, but the OP should know that there are issues with the "standard," and he can decide whether it matters or not.
A quick note on you're two last points:...
The difference between using DNG vs native raw files is primarily a matter of file management and convenience at this time.. That is, the major benefit of using DNG files, particularly if you use Adobe software, is that DNG files allow additional metadata to be stored in the same file as the raw data rather than having to store it in auxiliary 'sidecar' files (.XMP) which must be kept together with the native raw file to preserve the additional metadata. DNG also uses a lossless compression algorithm that can save disk space over many native raw file formats.
In the future, when there are so many different cameras and native raw file formats in existence, having files in DNG format might mean the difference between being able to process them with the latest software and/or having to keep an older system up and running with old software to process long-obsolete cameras and native raw file types. That day hasn't happened yet, but it will at some point due to the costs of testing new software for old, obsolete raw data files.
Ok, you archive the original RAW's and DNG's, that's prudent. Archival is something we rather don't need, just like insurance. I also go seldom back, but it was very usefull a few times...... I archive my original native raw files too ... in the five years or so I've been doing that, I've not once had any reason to go back to them due to a problem with a DNG file.
This is a prickly realm full of personal opinions and politics. I stand by my responses to the OP, and don't care to make a debate out of raw standards or lacks thereof.
Others have made this assertion. I suspect it depends on how you manage and work with image files, what your needs are. If you move files around frequently and in large volumes (think of a motion picture post-production workflow), having all the metadata encapsulated in the DNG is a plus as there are far less chances for the .XMP sidecar to be lost and/or corrupted. If you tend to have a pretty static workflow ... the file repository is written to and left in place most of the time ... the benefit of encapsulating additional metadata is reduced and the .XMP files pose a smaller burden on incremental update strategies.- I find it a big advantage that the RAW files doesn't change. Those are backupped by my and verified (with checksum) very early in the workflow. (Actually not fast enough for my taste, but that's a tradeoff for me) Those RAWfiles won't change anymore, that's important. The metadata sidecars are very small and don't give any volume problems, storing 20or 100 backups is a non issue.
It's not the decode or changes to the decode that get expensive. It's maintaining and adding to an ever increasing number of test cases in the QA cycle to be sure that you haven't broken something in incremental revisions of the raw processing engine that become costly over time. On a case by case basis there isn't a huge burden, but when you start planning to do a rev and realize that you need to run a test case for 100,200, 400, 1000 different kinds of raw files that this starts to absorb a LOT of time and resources.- The last point is a strange one. The decoding of the RAW file is the easy part for a RAW converter, especially because the sourcecode for dcraw is public available (It's difficult for brand new camera's, but not for existing). The most work is getting the needed test images and calibration info for the camera, this is difficult to do with an obsolete camera. So it will be the camera that will give problems, not the RAW format.
ABSOLUTELY! A raw converter is an interpreter, image rendering will shift as that interpreter is changed. I output a ProPhoto RGB, 16-bit per component flat TIFF file for every "finished" photo I produce and add it to my project archives independent of the original image files. Much less chance of a TIFF file's rendering shifting due to the underlying display software.One from me : don't expect you're new (version of) raw converter to render the images exactly the same. IMHO it's needed to keep a "developed" copy and 16-bit tiff profoto RGB no layers is a nice format for it. (tiff can be zipped internally to save place)
The decoding of the RAW file is an easy test and should be automated. There's a known input (the RAW files) and a known output (a memory image that contains the decoded "file" after the decoding proces but before further steps or a hash from it). Regression testing this is trivial....
It's not the decode or changes to the decode that get expensive. It's maintaining and adding to an ever increasing number of test cases in the QA cycle to be sure that you haven't broken something in incremental revisions of the raw processing engine that become costly over time. On a case by case basis there isn't a huge burden, but when you start planning to do a rev and realize that you need to run a test case for 100,200, 400, 1000 different kinds of raw files that this starts to absorb a LOT of time and resources.
...