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so DNG is not that universal... what's the point of DNG?

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viorel00

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I thought that DNG is the "universal negative format", the mother of them all... but here is a statement from Apple:

"Aperture only supports DNG files originated from cameras for which Aperture also supports the RAW format. If you import other DNG files, you may see the "Unrecognized File Format" message."

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302935

Then what's the point of DNG???
 
viorel00 said:
I thought that DNG is the "universal negative format", the mother
of them all... but here is a statement from Apple:

"Aperture only supports DNG files originated from cameras for which
Aperture also supports the RAW format. If you import other DNG
files, you may see the "Unrecognized File Format" message."
Click to expand...
So, Apple has cr@p support for DNG. How is that the fault of DNG?
viorel00 said:
Then what's the point of DNG???
Click to expand...
Erm... I couldn't care less about Apple or it's products, but you seem to think they're related to Adobe DNG in some way. They're not.

--
John Bean

PAW Week 38:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/1082841/3/97517668/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (4 April): http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/1348582
 
Well, the questions is not about Apple or Aperture. I was disapointed that some Pentax RAW files are not supported by iPhoto for example, and I thought I could alleviate that bu converting to a "universal" format, DNG. I did that, only to find out that a DNG file is only good if it comes from a supported camera.

I don't know about you, perhaps you preffer Windows and that is fine with me. The problems is that way in the future, you may not be able to open up the PEF files you shoot today. OK, you conver them to DNG, but it seems that DNG is not that universal either, it could very well happed that you may not open some DNG files on Windows, Linux, OS X, whatever. Than what is the point of DNG?

I though it was a format that was supposed to be UNIVERSAL to break free from a manufacturer-specific file format.
 
viorel00 said:
I thought that DNG is the "universal negative format", the mother
of them all... but here is a statement from Apple:
Click to expand...
Maybe not the mother of them all, but it is a fine format. Just see how many different applications that successfully opened that Samsung G-something-10 DNG file that is circulating.

Why blame DNG if something called "Aperture" isn't capable of doing the same thing? It would be much more adequate to blame the programmers that made Aperture I think. They obviously failed where others succeeded: making an application capable of reading DNG and take advantage of the data actually being inside the DNG file.

--
Jonas
 
Jonas B said:
viorel00 said:
I thought that DNG is the "universal negative format", the mother
of them all... but here is a statement from Apple:
Click to expand...
Maybe not the mother of them all, but it is a fine format. Just see
how many different applications that successfully opened that
Samsung G-something-10 DNG file that is circulating.
Why blame DNG if something called "Aperture" isn't capable of doing
the same thing? It would be much more adequate to blame the
programmers that made Aperture I think. They obviously failed where
others succeeded: making an application capable of reading DNG and
take advantage of the data actually being inside the DNG file.
Click to expand...
Yep, that's what I was tyying to get across. If I buy a camera that doesn't work with a memory card that works fine in all my other cameras, which do I blame - camera or card?

That's the same thing we see here; DNG is standard (just like the memory card) but it's the responsibility of Apple to make sure their software can use it - just like it's the camera maker's responsibility that its product correctly uses the standard memory card.

If Aperture doesn't work with a DNG from a DS then blame Apple, not the DNG format. It works fine in lots of other software - and on Macs as well as PCs.

--
John Bean

PAW Week 38:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/1082841/3/97517668/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (4 April): http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/1348582
 
I've been a mac user since 1986. I love apple products. They have far more compatibility with windows than the reverse. They play this fact up. However, I think in this case Apple is lacking. They have produced Aperture and hope it will compete in part with adobe products. If this is their intent, it is especially incumbent on them to support DNG. in the manner that other aps makers do. Final cut pro is the pinnacle of its category. If Apple wants the same for Aperture, they need to correct this (I think). I think this warrants an email all to all their appropriate contact info for all of their departments that this might fall under. You might want to post a similar thread in the mac forum and on all the forums you visit where such a post would be relevant (maybe Apple reads user posts, I think many mfgs. do). Apple should definitively take care of this.

g.
 
Maybe if we edit the header in the DNG file and make it a DL, then all would be well? (Aperture supports D & DL, but not DS )

I remember someone talking about this, but I was not interested in the topic back then ;-(

Has anyone tried this? How do I do it? Is there an automated procedure to change the header for all the files? a Mac software?

--
.Sam.

PhotoBlog: http://www.shadzee.com/ - Gallery: http://shadzee.smugmug.com/

 
Jonas B said:
Why blame DNG if something called "Aperture" isn't capable of doing
the same thing? It would be much more adequate to blame the
programmers that made Aperture I think. They obviously failed where
others succeeded: making an application capable of reading DNG and
take advantage of the data actually being inside the DNG file.
Click to expand...
It may not be fair to blame the programmers for this. Rawshooter also only supported DNG with embedded raw. I believe I read that there were technical and/or quality advantages in this approach. One might also reasonably expect there to be licensing issues with Adobe. All I'm saying is that without the facts it's easy to jump to hasty and incorrect conclusions.

Mike
 
Model Mike said:
It may not be fair to blame the programmers for this. Rawshooter
also only supported DNG with embedded raw. I believe I read that
there were technical and/or quality advantages in this approach.
Click to expand...
Equally. DCRaw, Silkypix, Apple(!) Quicktime, and others have had no such technical issues.
Model Mike said:
One might also reasonably expect there to be licensing issues with
Adobe.
Click to expand...
There ase no licensing issues. DNG is guaranteed licence-free, just like TIFF which is also an Adobe-owned format.
Model Mike said:
All I'm saying is that without the facts it's easy to jump
to hasty and incorrect conclusions.
Click to expand...
Indeed. But there's an awful lot of circumstantial evidence pointing to the Apertute program as the point of failure.

--
John Bean

PAW Week 38:
http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/1082841/3/97517668/Large



Index page: http://waterfoot.smugmug.com
Latest walkabout (4 April): http://waterfoot.smugmug.com/gallery/1348582
 
Model Mike said:
Model Mike said:
Why blame DNG if something called "Aperture" isn't capable of doing
the same thing? It would be much more adequate to blame the
programmers that made Aperture I think. They obviously failed where
others succeeded: making an application capable of reading DNG and
take advantage of the data actually being inside the DNG file.
Click to expand...
It may not be fair to blame the programmers for this. Rawshooter
also only supported DNG with embedded raw. I believe I read that
there were technical and/or quality advantages in this approach.
One might also reasonably expect there to be licensing issues with
Adobe. All I'm saying is that without the facts it's easy to jump
to hasty and incorrect conclusions.
Click to expand...
In this case it's clear that many others has achieved what the programmers of Aperture have not. For the question about licensing issues you can check yourself before saying I'm unfair. But you may be right about not blaiming the programmers: Maybe somebody at Apple told them not to support native DNG files. Or they spoke with Bibble-Eric. What do I know?

--
Jonas
 
John Bean (UK) said:
So, Apple has cr@p support for DNG. How is that the fault of DNG?

Erm... I couldn't care less about Apple or it's products, but you
seem to think they're related to Adobe DNG in some way. They're
not.
Click to expand...
Hm... I think there is a quality issue at the bottom of this though. And I think it goes like this:

RAW files has to be demosaiced before they are of any use, and this process is very much reliant on the camera that shot the picture. So for Apple (and other manufacturers), to be able to provide what they deam to be the best quality, they have to embed logic for how to handle each different camera. You may like this approach or not, but that is the way it is, I recon...

--
All The Best,
Joachim
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joachimhb/

 
jeffkrol said:
As a proponent of "no DNG" for various reasons, technical and
personal, I find it refreshing.....
http://www.openraw.org/articles
Click to expand...
You lost me there Jeff. What's the point in using the shortcoming different programmers has built into the pletora of todays TIFF files as arguments against DNG?

As I recall it there is plenty of possibilities in the DNG specifications for cameramakers to add all sorts of MakerNotes. If everybody follow the format specifications there are no problems that I'm aware of.

To make this refreshening something new must be added. When you tell me about what I missed, or what the great advantages of having a Mac with Aperture installed and find that it doesn't support DNG files are, then it may be refreshening. Personal reasons is one thing and they can be left aside. The technical reasons are of interest. Maybe I missed something.

--
regards,

Jonas
 
There is no fully UNIVERSAL file format that'll always be supported and will always be able to be read by everything for the rest of our lives until the end of time.

That's just technology and life.

You win some, you lose some.
 
Jonas B said:
jeffkrol said:
As a proponent of "no DNG" for various reasons, technical and
personal, I find it refreshing.....
http://www.openraw.org/articles
Click to expand...
You lost me there Jeff. What's the point in using the shortcoming
different programmers has built into the pletora of todays TIFF
files as arguments against DNG?
Click to expand...
This is why. A quote from the DNG specification:

"

DNG is an extension of TIFF 6.0 and is compatible with the TIFF-EP standard. See these
specifications for more information on TIFF and TIFF-EP:
"

The problems with TIFF are the problems with DNG. That problem being that it is extensible in such a way that makes it difficult or impossible to handle future extensions. In the same way that today no TIFF tool is able to open all TIFF files, since DNG is based on the same philosophy (er..specification) as TIFF, one can presume that in the future, no DNG converter will support all DNG files.

Now, I'm not religious about any current formats, though as a user, some form of standardization would be nice.

On the flip side, the state of the art is moving forward so quickly that for us, the users, to get too excited about standardization will cripple the ability of the industry to advance.

How about this, for instance. I want a native raw bracket format. Have the camera do its usual exposure bracketting, but then do a pre-corrected(for the exposure difference) difference-based compression (lossless, of course), so that the three bracketted photos only take a bit more space than just one. And of course your converter could recognize such a file, and do HDR, highlight correction, etc for you. Now I don't expect that that sort of foolishness would fit in a DNG file that any ol' raw converter today could handle, but I think the argument at hand is that the proven failures of TIFF aren't the right tool for the job.

Cheers!
Jonas B said:
As I recall it there is plenty of possibilities in the DNG
specifications for cameramakers to add all sorts of MakerNotes. If
everybody follow the format specifications there are no problems
that I'm aware of.
To make this refreshening something new must be added. When you
tell me about what I missed, or what the great advantages of having
a Mac with Aperture installed and find that it doesn't support DNG
files are, then it may be refreshening. Personal reasons is one
thing and they can be left aside. The technical reasons are of
interest. Maybe I missed something.

--
regards,

Jonas
Click to expand...
 
The issue is that raw converters usually support device-specific profiles of some sort or another - what color temperature to assume, what tonal curve to apply by default, if or how much noise reduction by default and so on. It's all stuff you can do manually just fine - and usually do - but that gives you an out-of-the-box reasonable default for your device.

The problem with Aperture (and I'd say indicative of the way the development team seem to have dropped the ball on the application) is that when they don't have a set of defaults for a camera they just refuse to open the file. Easy on the developers, problem for everyone else. What they should have done, of course - what most converters do already - is open the file with some generic default. With just a little more work they could allow the user to save their settings as the new default profile for their device.

--
Japan: http://www.lucs.lu.se/people/jan.moren/log/current.html
Images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jannem/
 
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