DNG versus NEF for archiving

I keep going back and forth on this question...

Should I archive in DNG or NEF. I'm familiar with the basic pros and cons of each format, but I'd like to hear from others in the forum as to "why" they
chose one over the other...

Thanks.

I use Pentax not Nikon, so that will influence my views.

I don't even copy the PEFs to my PC. I use the DNG Converter to put DNGs onto my PC, and then reformat the card. I do NOT advise anyone else to do this without careful evaluation! (I've been using DNG for nearly a year, so I am confident about it).

An option is to convert to DNG with the NEF embedded within it. Obviously the file is larger than a DNG. (But probably not as large as the sum of a DNG and the original NEF). You can then extract the original NEF later if you need it. This gives you, in one file, the combined advantages of DNG & NEF, with the ability to save ACR 3.1 settings in the DNG file. If you can afford the size, a near-perfect archival format.

There isn't one answer. It depends on your workflow, and also on your confidence about the future of DNG. Do a search for "Products supporting DNG" to see what companies and products are doing.

I archive both plus a jpeg for all of the shots that I keep. I will also archive 16-bit Tiff after PP of the shots that I really like and may potentially print in the future.

--
-Mike
http://www.pbase.com/ghostrider25

'Cameras don't take pictures... people do.'

dawg0417 said:

I keep going back and forth on this question...
Should I archive in DNG or NEF. I'm familiar with the basic pros
and cons of each format, but I'd like to hear from others in the
forum as to "why" they
chose one over the other...

Thanks.

Click to expand...

I stick with my NEF files only, for one I can't see sticking with the Adobe format simply because I think Adobe is way to expensive. How much are you willing to pay Adobe when you need a new upgrade to Window Vista or anyother Operating system. Whereas Capture is only $100 new and so far upgrades have been free "knock on wood".

I'm not too Keen on Adobe for many years they have given away for free there Acrobat viewer, but what will happen if oneday they start charging for it?? Then everybody whom ever bought a e-Book, recieved a PDF manual or saved to DNG are now screwed and forced to purchase adobe software.

Of course its just my opinion for what its worth
http://home.comcast.net/~nickmjr/
Nick M

Nick, you needn't worry about Adobe charging for DNG. They have published a world-wide license granting everyone the right to use the published specifications for developing products. No court would take them seriously if they tried to charge. (It is on their web site).

Neither does DNG commit you to paying for Adobe products. The number of (non-Adobe) products that support DNG increases at the rate of at least one a week. There are more than 10 raw converters, more than 20 other software products, plus several software tools that are used within products.

There are at least 3 cameras and 5 camera-backs that use DNG for their raw formats, from 4 camera makers in 4 countries. At the moment they are niche camera makers - Nikon and Canon will probably take years! But that number isn't bad given that DNG is less than a year old. (2 days to go ...)

Obviously if you are using Nikon software, you have to keeps the NEFs. I am just pointing out that you have other options as well.

Unless the camera makers change to DNG it will die.

It's the new "JPG 2000". Remember that..

DNG could vanish as quickly as NEF. Both are manufacture supported. I you worry about his, use TIFF.

Morris

--



http://qcpages.qc.edu/~morris/POD

Barry,

Yes it may be free now, what happens if DNG takes off big? Even with most manufactures participating, then that leaves Adobe in the dominate position to dicate and control manufactures RAW format.

http://home.comcast.net/~nickmjr/
Nick M

I keep my all NEFs as original on CDs/DVDs and all converted to TIFFs kept on two seperate external harddrive; one firewire HD and the other USD HD.

http://fotto4u.myphotoalbum.com

dawg0417 said:

I keep going back and forth on this question...
Should I archive in DNG or NEF. I'm familiar with the basic pros
and cons of each format, but I'd like to hear from others in the
forum as to "why" they
chose one over the other...

Thanks.

Click to expand...

to me it seems simple. adobe is going to keep dng around as long as nikon will keep nef around if not longer. even if im wrong so what. there will for a long long time be a computer with a version of a adobe that can convert your stinking dngs or whatever into jpegs or tiffs.

i have decided i love using adobe for everything except batch processing. i think nikon capture does that really dang well. so i will use dngs probably and convert to jpegs and save both actually, but probably not nefs anymore.
--
nick

I like to keep at least one copy of my image in the very original format I shot it with, therefore I will keep at least one copy of the original NEF.

Regards,
Przemek

dawg0417 said:

I keep going back and forth on this question...
Should I archive in DNG or NEF. I'm familiar with the basic pros
and cons of each format, but I'd like to hear from others in the
forum as to "why" they
chose one over the other...

Thanks.

Click to expand...

I have about a gig of .FPX files that nobody, including Kodak, supports any type of converter or a file to open it. I worry about NEF's too as ten year's goes by very fast! DNG may do the same. TIFFs and JPG haven't changed in the ten years I have been digital.
--
JC

Marli said:

Unless the camera makers change to DNG it will die.

Click to expand...

[snip]

4 camera manufacturers have changed to DNG for some of their cameras and/or digital backs. (Hasselblad-Imacon, Leica, Ricoh, and Samsung). The Hasselblad-Imacon CF and CFH digital backs can fit many medium format cameras and view cameras.

But why would DNG die if none changed? For example, if all non-camera-manufacturer software products supported DNG, and no camera manufacturers supported DNG, then as long as there is a good DNG Converter for all the cameras, DNG would be a valuable product! Hardly anyone using DNG at the moment does so because their camera outputs DNG! Mine doesn't, but I use a DNG workflow.

Compare: Adobe's PSD format hasn't died, yet no camera outputs PSD. Why? Because Adobe users have a major use for PSD - it holds the results of working on an image with Photoshop. So perhaps 100Ks or millions of such files are created every day, and other photo-editors accept it too.

Similarly for DNG. It can hold the result of working on an image with ACR 3.1 & later. I suspect that perhaps 100Ks or millions of DNG files are created every day for this reason. In fact, I suspect that raw shooters using Photoshop CS2 will eventually create far more DNG files per day that PSD files. (I create at least 10x as many DNG files as PSD files + JPEG files + TIFF files combined).

NickMJr said:

Barry,

Yes it may be free now, what happens if DNG takes off big? Even
with most manufactures participating, then that leaves Adobe in the
dominate position to dicate and control manufactures RAW format.

Click to expand...

Why does it?

It is important to know that DNG evolves via different versions. As each version is published, it comes under Adobe's global free license. Each DNG file identifies its version number.

Therefore, any published DNG version is outside Adobe's control. A camera could continue to use versions 1.0.0.0 or 1.1.0.0 (the two published versions so far) for as long as they need to, possibly years. A range of software products will support those versions for years - I doubt if products will drop support for early versions. (Because that would mean dropping support for early images, and why would photographers buy an upgrade to a software product that did that?)

If a camera manufacturer needs a new version of DNG, why would Adobe not provide it? And if Adobe didn't, the camera manufacturer would just design a new raw format that suited their needs, rather like where we are now, and tell the world why they were doing so, which would harm Adobe. The camera manufacturer wouldn't be worse off than if they never adopted DNG.

DNG is a file format, not a senosr format. It won't inhibit sensor technlogy evolution.

Also remember that Adobe owns the TIFF specification that camera manufacturers and lots of other products (and me, and perhaps you) are perfectly willing to use! How is DNG different from that?

nick said:

to me it seems simple. adobe is going to keep dng around as long as
nikon will keep nef around if not longer. even if im wrong so what.
there will for a long long time be a computer with a version of a
adobe that can convert your stinking dngs or whatever into jpegs or
tiffs.

Click to expand...

[snip]

More to the point, there is already a lot of non-Adobe software that supports DNG. If Adobe went bust tomorrow, and ACR disappeared in a year or two, (which doesn't appear likely given Adobe's financial results!), I suspect some interesting products based on dcraw, etc, would appear! That is the advantage of having a published format and lots of motivated programmers.

(I've suspected that it would actually be possible for some enterprising programmers to turn DNGs back into the original formats! But anyone worried about future support of DNG can embed the original raw files in the DNGs, if they don't mind the extra size, and get the original back later).

NickMJr said:

I stick with my NEF files only, for one I can't see sticking with
the Adobe format simply because I think Adobe is way to expensive.

Click to expand...

the professional community of publishers, post processors, and printers beg to differ.

NickMJr said:

I'm not too Keen on Adobe for many years they have given away for
free there Acrobat viewer, but what will happen if oneday they
start charging for it??

Click to expand...

i've been breathing the air for free in at least 18 different countries that i've worked or travelled. what if oneday they start charging for it?

one day at a time dude. deal with what's on your plate. as i work in the publishing industry, i prefer to keep my files in both DNG, and raw formats-- NEF, ORF, CRW, etc. I'd prefer one standard, but as the market is in flux, i need to manage multiple standards. it would be a shame not to utilize the fine features of DxO and ACR together. only DNG allows that.

the born 2 design
design guy

nunatak said:

NickMJr said:

I stick with my NEF files only, for one I can't see sticking with
the Adobe format simply because I think Adobe is way to expensive.

Click to expand...

the professional community of publishers, post processors, and
printers beg to differ.

Click to expand...

Well perhapse if I was a professional I would most likely have the Nikon D2X and the money to spend $900 to $1200 for Adobe CS2. For someone like myself who uses his D70 as a hobby I'll stick with my Capture for $100.
http://home.comcast.net/~nickmjr/
Nick M

I see no reason to convert my NEFs to DNG at this point. Both are likely to be around for a long time, and I have no plan to move away from Nikon gear. I don't have multiple camera brands so the advantage of a "common" format has no benefit to me. Hard disk storage is cheap, so that's not an issue for me.

There will be plenty of warning if and when support for NEF is withdrawn either by Nikon or Adobe. So I archive my original NEF files, bring them into PS CS2 via NC4 (likely to switch to RawMagick at some point when it becomes a "real" product and has documentation so I can use it properly), and save intermediate and PP'd images as PSD files. When I go to output, I convert at the last minute to the appropriate format.

At some point if DNG or some other format emerges as a clear long-term winner, I will undertake the (massive) effort to convert all my images, but I see no compelling reason to do so in the foreseeable future.

-- Russ

I'm not an expert in this kind of thing, but I did take a quick look at the DNG specification on Adobe's site.

The impression I got is that, like TIFF and unlike e.g. the GIF format, DNG is more a framework than an actual format. TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is really a framework through which information ("tags") can be attached to images. This means that, in order to read a TIFF file, you need to have a program that actually supports the tags used in that file. I've come across TIFF files that could be opened only by some TIFF-supporting programs, not others.

What I read in the DNG spec seems to rely heavilly on "manufacturer notes", fields that are specific for individual companies. I don't know if that is only for certain EXIF information, or if that includes things like white balance information, which is where incompatibility issues become important.

On the other hand, the NEF format is not really a proprietary format. The way the current Nikon cameras store data in the NEF file is pretty well documented in the "dcraw.c" program, which is publicly available. I looked around in that program as well and found that I could always use that to access my NEF files. As a software developer, I could always use that to write my own program to access my NEF files. Of course, non-programmers don't have that luxury, but there are plenty of free and low-cost programs around that will support the NEF file format to feel confident of support for this format in the years to come.

So for now, I feel NEF to be a much better way of archiving my images than the DNG format.

Best,
Eric
--
http://www.lumenssolutions.com/photography/

NickMJr said:

Well perhapse if I was a professional I would most likely have the
Nikon D2X and the money to spend $900 to $1200 for Adobe CS2. For
someone like myself who uses his D70 as a hobby I'll stick with my
Capture for $100.

Click to expand...

there's nothing wrong with what you have or use. i use both products (ACR+NC) and they each have their merits. photoshop is only as expensive to photography as is good glass or a fast cpu--and it's a bargain to upgrade. just use the best tools you at your disposal. life's too short to worry about the rest.

if, however, you're archiving for longetivity and/or commercial portability, the promotion of a common RAW standard is imperitive. whether it's DNG or ??? is yet undetermined. but one can speculate that the next version of adobe's postscript RIP should make it a lot easier to process DNG for output to press. which side do you think the publishing industry would prefer -- a proprietary format for each camera maker with unpredictable output on press or one portable standard that's easier to color manage?

as Barry pointed out, there are different criteria for different folks when archiving your photos.
best regards ...

the born 2 design
design guy