Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Digital Negative (or DNG) Format
Most camera manufacturers have created and maintain their own unique
proprietary formats for raw image i les, dif erentiated by unique i le
extensions. For example, NEF dei nes a Nikon raw i le and CRW dei nes a
Canon Raw File. As for CS4, Adobe Photoshop (via Camera Raw 5.0) and
Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 support over 200 unique, proprietary raw camera
formats. But with the rapid advancement of technology, it is not safe to
assume that the camera companies that make each format will continue to
support them once they become outdated. The proprietary i les that can be
converted with manufacturer's solutions now are not likely to be supported
years down the road, and will certainly never be archival enough to last a
lifetime. Furthermore, they presume that someone else that might want to
read them will have the same camera and software!
For this reason, and with an eye toward the long-term future, Adobe
proposed a universal, free specii cation format called DNG. The DNG format
has the advantages of being future-proof publicly available, free of cost and,
in classic Adobe style, it even compresses the footprint of the characteristically
large raw i les (lossless, of course).
Unlike a proprietary raw i le which stores settings in an accompanying
“sidecar” text i le, a DNG encapsulates those settings in the i le itself - so
there's no worry about separating the image from the instructions that tell it
what it looks like. An additional advantage of the DNG format is that it enables
the user to read new camera formats in older software via DNG conversion
(drag and drop converter).
While several major companies such as Leica and Hasselblad have written
to DNG natively, any i le can be converted easily to DNG with any of the
following methods:
• DNG drag and drop converter
DNG Digital Negative Universal Raw
format created by Adobe
 
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