Adobe DNG
For some time, Adobe systems has promoted their DNG file format as an alternative to
proprietary raw file formats that are defined (and in general not documented) by camera
manufacturers). I have been skeptical, given that Adobe tends to be one of the least
open and most proprietary companies on the planet. However, there is no denying their
leading and central role in photographic processing software, and after many years I have
begun to be swayed by the arguments.
In September of 2013, I began using Lightroom and have found it to be ideal for my purposes.
It is possible when importing images into Lightroom from a flash card to have lightroom do
the conversion to DNG format "on the fly". The time necessary to do this is in fact one of
the major objections to using DNG by some parties. I view it as a one time penalty that I
am quite willing to pay for the benefits later.
Advantages:
- No sidecar files with Lightroom.
- Open and documented file format.
- File sizes are smaller (we will see about that).
Frankly it was the no sidecar file argument that persuaded me.
Adobe has long claimed that "camera manufacturers drop support for their raw formats",
but this has never made sense to me. I don't use any software from Canon to process
my cameras raw files (Canon does provide "DPP" (digital photo professional), but I have
never used it). The only vendor providing software to read my raw files is Adobe, and
unless Adobe plans to drop support for Canon's CR2 raw file format (which they are more
than capable of doing), I don't see the point.
I was pleased to find out that the DNG file format it a published and open standard.
I suppose I won't really believe it until I have written some software of my own to
read DNG files, but Adobe does make a specification document available:
Feedback? Questions?
Drop me a line!
Tom's Digital Photography Info / tom@mmto.org