Who can explain this regarding DNGs

[Sausalito]

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Which was really rather the point of DNG in the first place. To avoid yet another propietary Raw format that required its own converter and in Adobe's case yet another update, somewhere north of 100 formats having to be supported, sometimes by reverse engineering.

 

That was how Adobe was trying to sell it, but this discussion shows it to be just another proprietary ADOBE raw format. I'm more comfortable with Nikon protecting NEF than Adobe... and I have the same problem with both when new cameras come out... at least that's what is seems to be.

 

Or am I misunderstanding some part of this? (I don't even know where you guys learn this stuff... way deeper into the software than I would normally even be thinking )

 

tom

[Sausalito]

Raw converters always “have a hard time” dealing with raw files from new camera models they don’t yet know about. Converting a raw file from an unknown camera with Adobe’s DNG Converter sometimes helps making the software play along (whether the original file was in DNG format or some other format). The general approach taken by developers of raw conversion software (or in fact any software dealing with raw files) is to rather err on the strict side, i.e. not to open raw files when they aren’t explicitly supported, even when the file format as such is. Expression Media used to have issues with NEF files from the (then new) D3 and D300, nothing new here.

 

Michael-

 

I agree, but with the old NEF problems, EM had to wait for Nikon to send them the code to accept the new camera. Do we know if that is required of Leica DNG? and if so, has Leica sent it?

 

tom

[mjh]

with the old NEF problems, EM had to wait for Nikon to send them the code to accept the new camera.

Strictly speaking they didn’t have to wait; they could have decrypted the encrypted white-balance data and be done with it. It was a copyright issue introduced with the Digital Millennium Act and similar legislature in Europe and elsewhere that prevented software vendors from legally converting those NEF files. A couple of months later Adobe and Nikon had reached an agreement and that was that.

 

Expression Media is a slightly different case in that it isn’t really a raw converter. If you are the developer of a raw converter, keeping current with new camera models is of paramount importance. With an image database such as Expression Media this is a somewhat less pressing concern. I am using Expression Media myself (still the old version 1.0) but I don’t even bother with cataloging raw files – why should I clog the database with raw and JPEG versions of the same shot? As I file the raw files in a subfolder within the JPEG folder, finding the raw file corresponding to a given JPEG is trivial.

 

Do we know if that is required of Leica DNG?

There are no secret and/or encrypted data in DNG files, except when the DNG Converter preserves the original raw data by embedding it into the DNG file (next to the converted data) – in that case the DNG will contain the same encrypted data that the original file did (if it did). But since Leica cameras write DNG files to begin with, this caveat doesn’t apply.

[hoppyman]

I disagree with your conclusion Tom. It is the (only) Raw format that Adobe has developed and they promote it for themselves. Nothing wrong with that. But they also manage to add support for all of those other Raw formats each time a new camera appears as well. Try opening all of those with the Nikon software

 

The big difference is that the Adobe developed DNG format is documented and 'open' for other vendors to use it if they choose. Vendors implementing it are not required to implement all of the standard and in fact there are some features in V1.3.0.0 (eg. lens correction possibilities in OP Codes) that no-one is using as yet. I hope that will be something Leica Camera takes up in a future model actually.

 

However I'm not trying to sell you something or convince of anything against your will; just answering your orignal questions. If you would like to learn more, I recommend the Adobe support sites.

Enjoy.

[Sausalito]

I disagree with your conclusion Tom. It is the (only) Raw format that Adobe has developed and they promote it for themselves. Nothing wrong with that. But they also manage to add support for all of those other Raw formats each time a new camera appears as well. Try opening all of those with the Nikon software

 

The big difference is that the Adobe developed DNG format is documented and 'open' for other vendors to use it if they choose. Vendors implementing it are not required to implement all of the standard and in fact there are some features in V1.3.0.0 (eg. lens correction possibilities in OP Codes) that no-one is using as yet. I hope that will be something Leica Camera takes up in a future model actually.

 

However I'm not trying to sell you something or convince of anything against your will; just answering your orignal questions. If you would like to learn more, I recommend the Adobe support sites.

Enjoy.

 

 

Thanks again, Geoff. I'm not trying to be argumentative and appreciate your input. I'm a big ACR fan and this is my first experience with a camera with native DNG and I'm expecting that at some point it will fit in with my customary workflow. My only point it that so far, it has not really been simpler than new NEFs (for me, at least... other workflows seem to work fine with it).

 

I'll check out the adobe forums but they didn't seem to have any X1 background when I first checked there. I think that ultimately, it is a Phase 1/EM issue and will be resolved. Phase 1 introduced a big upgrade today, and that may be where all of their resources have been dedicated in the last couple months.

 

cheers,

 

tom

[pimver]

see my recent post in this forum,

 

Geoff, I can understand all of this, however:

Can we confirm this compression can not be turned off in ACR. LR and CS%,

Furthermore, is there anyway we can reconstruct the file to the original size, if it is completely lossless, at least in theory, this should be possible. If not the question arises if this compression is indeed as lossless as many people think.

 

For the moment, until I really understand what happens to my files, I am keeping untouched straight-out-of-the camera files separately

 

thanks

 

Pim

[hoppyman]

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Pim, the option is gone in the current versions of Photoshop and Lightroom..

 

The compression really truly is completely lossless . The information is preserved bit for bit (if you make a TIFF or PSD version from your DNG for example). There is just no reason to not compress (except paranoia or a desire to filll your hard drives much faster;)).

 

However to achieve your desire, in Lightroom you can choose the option to automatically make a second copy (to a different location) of your DNGs on import. This is good policy any way, of course. But the second copy does not have any of the instructions that you may apply on import AND is not compressed. Try it out. If you have DNG files now that have been losslessly compressed, you can reimport them from the original source if desired.

 

The Adobe forums are an excellent resource to learn more.

[pimver]

this is interesting, and apologies for spreading all this over 2 thread, been a bit to enthusiastic.

will try this tomorrow, this could be the solution I was looking for