Is DNG the best format for digital archiving?

[Ranchu]

There you are simply wrong. Adobe gets the camera color information from the manufacturers to develop their camera profiles for raw processing. Whatever the camera wrote into native raw data files, whether proprietary or DNG, remains there for interpretation.

Not only Adobe can process DNG or proprietary raw files, you know, aside from camera manufacturers..

From Leica, recently Canon, not Nikon. It doesn't matter, the ACR converter uses matrix profiles, not LUT profiles like ViewNX and DPP. The short version is that with LUT profiles they can write curves on the raw information, and matrix just dumps the information into a bucket, comparatively. Matrix profiles are not accurate, they are for transforming Adobe98 to Prophoto, not 1Ds MkII to prophoto, hence we get all this 'output referred workflow' blah from Adobe to cover it up.

 

[gavinlg]

I'm amazed how much bad information is in this thread.

First of all, DNG does not lock you into the ACR that was around at the time you converted your files, so the premise behind post #2 in this thread is wrong.

Why then, have my DNG converted files not kept pace with the acr updates, when all my other raw files have?

 

[Sylvester]

Quite funny to read... In my opinion, inkjet prints used as archive is just... weird... If you need another print, you'll photocopy it? Quite strange... DNGs are open source RAW files... I trust more the whole world who can make programs that can open DNGs than Nikon, Canon or any camera brand to make softwares that will open their files for posterity... on every operating system that will come...
That thing about colour profiles... man calm down... Out of camera colour is just plain **** to me 99% of the time... There's always something to tweak in there... And the ProPhoto colour space is more than enough for me... Anyway... Computer people can get quite angry for nothing...

 

[Ranchu]

This is important to me. I was also informed that I profoundly misunderstand it. I've done this by hand with a calculator, an eyedropper, and paper because I wanted to manipulate the colors,

http://simon.tindemans.eu/tools/acrcalibrator

🙂

If you calibrate with this script using the medium saturation RGB patches (only) rather than the high saturation ones (they're right next to each other in one of the rows, I forget) , you will get 0,0,0 for your ACR calibration. If you don't, you will not. Nice profile, huh?

 

[willie_901]

Why then, have my DNG converted files not kept pace with the acr updates, when all my other raw files have?

Sincerely, this is a mystery to me because I have never experienced this with NEF, RAF or Panasonic raw formats.

 

[Godfrey]

From Leica, recently Canon, not Nikon. It doesn't matter, the ACR converter uses matrix profiles, not LUT profiles like ViewNX and DPP. The short version is that with LUT profiles they can write curves on the raw information, and matrix just dumps the information into a bucket, comparatively. Matrix profiles are not accurate, they are for transforming Adobe98 to Prophoto, not 1Ds MkII to prophoto, hence we get all this 'output referred workflow' blah from Adobe to cover it up.

Your comments are irrelevant. Or specific to your own very particular niche interests which affect nothing that neither I nor 99.9% of everyone else in the photographic industry have any concern over.

If you don't like the results of Adobe's raw conversion, use something else that you prefer. I can't say that your concerns over "accuracy" mean a heck of a lot to anything.

I've never heard the term "output referred workflow" from Adobe, so I don't know what you're talking about there.

G

 

[Godfrey]

Originally Posted by gavinlg:
Why then, have my DNG converted files not kept pace with the acr updates, when all my other raw files have?

Sincerely, this is a mystery to me because I have never experienced this with NEF, RAF or Panasonic raw formats.

Certainly a mystery to me as to what it means too. All my current digital cameras, but two, produce DNG files directly out of the cameras, and the other cameras' files were converted to DNG long ago (CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, ORF, SRF, MRF, and RAW). I've seen all the advantages available in subsequent versions of Camera Raw.

G

 

[gavinlg]

Certainly a mystery to me as to what it means too. All my current digital cameras, but two, produce DNG files directly out of the cameras, and the other cameras' files were converted to DNG long ago (CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, ORF, SRF, MRF, and RAW). I've seen all the advantages available in subsequent versions of Camera Raw.

G

How many cameras produce DNG files straight out of cam? I can think of the leica Ms, maybe the X1/2. Any others?

 

[Contarama]

Pentax makes one.

 

[sevo]

Quite funny to read... In my opinion, inkjet prints used as archive is just... weird...

In practice, prints are the best archival medium, as evident by the fact that over the course of the past 150 years they have accumulated to outnumber surviving negatives by magnitudes. Which is not a matter of substrate longevity (there is little difference between glass plate negatives and prints when it comes to that), but a social factor. Prints are immediately visible and interpretable, and tend to stay in the hands of someone who has some relation to the pictured persons and sceneries for at least one generation past the creator.

Whether inkjet is suitable will depend on the technology used. There are pigment based inks and laser toners whose longevity is magnitudes better than that of C-prints, even beating silver prints in some storage conditions.

 

[MikeAUS]

How many cameras produce DNG files straight out of cam? I can think of the leica Ms, maybe the X1/2. Any others?

Pentax: the K5 's, K30, K01, Kx/r 's
Ricoh: GR series and GXR

 

[Godfrey]

How many cameras produce DNG files straight out of cam? I can think of the leica Ms, maybe the X1/2. Any others?

Off the top of my head:

Leica m8 m9 m x2 x1
Ricoh gxr and others
All Pentax since K10D of late 2006
Some Hasselblad backs

G

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Why then, have my DNG converted files not kept pace with the acr updates, when all my other raw files have?

I suspect you may have encoded a pre-decoded (or pre-"interpreted") file.

All my DNG files from my M8, going back to 2007, have benefited (if that's the proper verb and its conjugation...existentially-speaking) from the noise reduction improvements in the newer ACR.

Either you exported your raw files via Lightroom having pre-applied settings first, or you set "Lossy Compression" during your DNG conversion.

I have also experienced multiple installs of DNG converter and/or ACR plugins in the past, and Adobe seems to have effed-up (and recently corrected) their upgrade methods in the past several years. Sometimes you just have to hunt those extra files down, uninstall and reinstall so that all your Adobe programs work harmoniously.

Software development suffers greatly and gravely from "who cares!"-ism from the part of departmental bosses who only care about reaching a deadline without having the proper technical background (or clue) to understand what they're asking from developers...which is why they (the bosses) opt to outsource, where they'll happily deliver minimally-compliant software for their reduced wages (they both think they're ripping the other off).

Developers who care greatly about good coding and engineering practices are usually more experienced and demanding of higher wages. The industry only cares about short-term, low-cost, revenue gratification, and not about permanence. That's why some of the best software is either very expensive, or free from idealists bent on improving the world (i.e. the inventor of IP/TCP protocol)

The many iterations of DNG converters are not safe from this overall "so what?!" environment.

The cure (or, as is also often the case in software development, the workaround) is to always be vigilant and having the attitude of "you can never be too careful": keep the original RAW files; always. At least the ones you want to keep. Any conversions are "to play with". The originals are to be kept unchanged, until the company that is behind it ceases to exist. It is at that moment that you then think about migrating/converting your data.

Your mileage may vary. Restrictions apply. Void where prohibited.

 

[Aristophanes]

The odds of a print archive being kept given the overhead costs are much higher than the almost zero costs to perpetuate digital data. A digital file being of almost no value will exist in perpetuity (Flickr) while even a modestly valuable print and neg may find its way to the trash.

JPEG is also open source and if you foresee a non-editing future at basic resolution then this is also acceptable. There's a difference between an art photo and an archival summary for historical or journalistic purposes (this is what the building looked like in 2013). In the latter case, DNG is overkill.

My better half is an archivist.

 

[Sam N]

One other potentially useful thing about DNG:
If you use custom camera profiles (a la VSCO or made with a ColorChecker or whatever) you can save these into your DNG files so that your colors will be the same if you move the file to another computer that may not have all of your profiles installed.

 

[Stephen G]

The odds of a print archive being kept given the overhead costs are much higher than the almost zero costs to perpetuate digital data. A digital file being of almost no value will exist in perpetuity (Flickr) while even a modestly valuable print and neg may find its way to the trash.

The concern being that Flickr is unlikely to be around in 20, 50 or 100 years.
I shoot mostly digital. I have all sorts of digital archival strategies including local HDD, local Bluray, and remote web storage.

I do however, believe that Prints are an important part as well.

Further, prints stored in families homes are more likely to outlast me than files stored in any format, onto any medium being found/looked at/printed when I'm not the one doing it.

 

[Godfrey]

Actually, if you really really want your photographs to be archived forever, assemble them into Blurb books, have two printed, get the ISBN numbers, and file the copyrights. You'll send one copy of the book to the government, either in print or in PDF, where it will be archived and maintained along with all other Library of Congress materials.

Means nothing in terms of your personal digital archiving, but since this thread has ranged rather far afield already, might as well mention it.

G

 

[Ranchu]

Your comments are irrelevant. Or specific to your own very particular niche interests which affect nothing that neither I nor 99.9% of everyone else in the photographic industry have any concern over.

If you don't like the results of Adobe's raw conversion, use something else that you prefer. I can't say that your concerns over "accuracy" mean a heck of a lot to anything.

I've never heard the term "output referred workflow" from Adobe, so I don't know what you're talking about there.

G

Says you. My comments are directly relevant to the topic, "Is DNG the best format for digital archiving?", and the answer is No. The best format for digital archiving is the format your camera shot them in.

 

[Godfrey]

Says you. My comments are directly relevant to the topic, "Is DNG the best format for digital archiving?" and the answer is No. The best format for digital archiving is the format you camera shot them in.

I'd say it's a toss up, rather than one being better than the other. The primary thrust of saving the original raw files is that they are indeed the original raw files, so if that's your intent in archiving, go with it.

On the other hand, you can convert to DNG files, get all the benefits of DNG file future process ability, and embed within them the original raw files if you find you have a need to extract them for some particular reason in the future. That to me says DNG is a "better" format for archiving.

It all goes back to what I said at the start: you first have to define what it is you want to archive, and then have to determine what the best format to archive is on that basis. All other decisions are derivative of that.

G

 

[Ranchu]

On the other hand, you can convert to DNG files, get all the benefits of DNG file future process ability, and embed within them the original raw files if you find you have a need to extract them for some particular reason in the future. That to me says DNG is a "better" format for archiving.
G

The NEFs or CR2s can't be extracted in a form that DPP or ViewNX can read them though. Once you make your non DNG raws into DNGs you are locked into third party software to edit them. Adobe's a pretty shifty company these days, too. Will Raw Developer be around as long as Canon? Is Aperture still updated? And DPP is excellent.