Canon Digital Rebel XT, RAW files, and Photoshop

McLeod wrote:

On Sun, 22 May 2005 14:34:28 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:


No, they merely need to let the spec (that they've already written) out
and not encrypt the data. Then Adobe will hapilly add the plugin to the
PS software.


They did. That was the software developer kit. And Adobe has. You
are repeating an urban legend over and over and can't seem to shake
it.

Answer the real question then. If they're making it so open to ever
developer and his pet iguanna, why encrypt in the first place?



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McLeod wrote:

I don't know how many times I have to repeat this. Adobe Camera Raw
fully supports NEF. What do I have to do to convince you of this?
It's you who seems to be baffled.

It's not a big mystery about the less than full featured plug-ins
either. If you install Nikon software after Photoshop is already
installed the Nikon software installs a plug-in. If you install
Photoshop after the Nikon software it doesn't. All you have to do is
go to your plug-ins folder on your hard drive and delete it.

Then, why, oh why, do they need to encrypt the data?


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Jeremy Nixon wrote:


It also cuts the size of my raw files in half, with lossless compression,
so that's pretty nice too. And once I do upgrade, CS will save the
Camera Raw settings right in the DNG file itself, which is a nice thing
as well.

I tested 22 files last night with the DNG converter. Compression ranges
from 26% to 41%, average 33%.

So, I'm reconsidering it for storage logistics. Still haven't made up
my mind, however.

FWIW: Elements 3.0 cost US$89 (download version) and handles the RAW's
up to the 350D (16 bit/color).

Cheers,
Alan



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Barry Pearson wrote:


I worked for many years on a large complex software product, and
maintaining and supporting changes to old versions DID hurt those on
the latest versions. Development and support effort is always limited.

Likewise. However, the nature of plugins is so modular in approach as
to make this maintenance trivial. It remains, IMO, simple strategy of
Adobe to force upgrades where CS is concerned.

In effect, CS is *SO GOOD* that there are a lot of non-upgraded CS' out
there and Adobe want these folks to upgrade for the u$ual rea$on$.

And it can be galling to fix problems in old versions that have already
been fixed in the latest version!

I understand the frustration of those who want to stay on older
versions. We used to withdraw support except for the last 2 versions.

In aerospace [avionics] s/w you're stuck with the customer base and
airplanes that serve for 20+ years. You might stop upgrading installed
system capability/features, but when bugs are found they MUST be fixed.

snp
And, as has been said many times here, there is a way out! It is
pushing things to say "I want new cameras supported in my old vesion,
but don't tell me the answer is DNG".

But that's the carrot to the no-CS-upgrade stick and Adobe are willing
to trade those $ for higher adoption of DNG.

Cheers,
Alan

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-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.

Alan Browne wrote:
[snip]
In effect, CS is *SO GOOD* that there are a lot of non-upgraded CS'
out
there and Adobe want these folks to upgrade for the u$ual rea$on$.

I agree that CS is good. In fact, had I not bought a digital SLR last
year, I might still be on PS 6, which was also pretty good! (I never
took PS 7).

But, with my digital camera, I shoot (only) Raw, and I have built my CS
workflow on Bruce Fraser's book. That concentrates on getting the Raw
settings & choices for (say) a whole shoot sorted out, using just
Browser & ACR, before getting into true-Photoshop.

For anyone with this style of workflow, and the need to handle 100s of
Raws at a time, CS2 is far better. The whole Bridge / ACR combination
is designed to support this workflow well. (I have no idea whether it
is any good with other types of workflow. Frankly, I suspect that
someone who feeds Raw images through ACR & Photoshop one-by-one may not
be happy).

[snip]
And, as has been said many times here, there is a way out! It is
pushing things to say "I want new cameras supported in my old
vesion, but don't tell me the answer is DNG".

But that's the carrot to the no-CS-upgrade stick and Adobe are
willing to trade those $ for higher adoption of DNG.

Yes! And some people may wonder why Adobe are so keen on DNG. It
appears to lose revenue, both by making it easier for others to enter
the Raw processing business, and by reducing the need to upgrade.

I believe DNG has a simple mission: "to accelerate the growth of Raw
shooting worldwide". (I don't believe it has any direct revenue
objectives). How? By making Raw distinctive, easy, credible, flexible,
safe, etc.

A question for anyone wondering whether to try DNG is: "do you want
easy, flexible, safe, etc?"

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/
http://www.birdsandanimals.info/

Alan Browne wrote:

FWIW: Elements 3.0 cost US$89 (download version) and handles the RAW's
up to the 350D (16 bit/color).

Yeah, I know, but Elements isn't suitable for serious photo work, and if
I'm going to pay, I'll just upgrade to CS2. The point is, I don't have
to upgrade, now or ever. If I see no compelling reason to use CS2 over
CS, I can skip this upgrade completely.

But, as I read about Photoshop CS2, I am starting to see a couple of
pretty good reasons for the upgrade -- curves in Camera Raw, and the
new "merge to HDR" function. So, I may not skip this upgrade after
all. But, thanks to DNG, I get to decide. (I'd be upgrading the
whole suite, since I also use Illustrator and InDesign.)

--
Jeremy |

Barry Pearson wrote:

I thought the SDK didn't give access to the sensor data?

It doesn't. All it gives you is the processed (post-conversion) output.
It is therefore not suitable for use by Adobe, as using it would defeat
the entire purpose of Camera Raw.

--
Jeremy |

McLeod wrote:

No, only pointing out that most of the camera manufacturers do it.
According to the article and interview by dpreview of Dave Coffin of
dcraw Canon also encrypts and compresses their raw files and it seems
to change with every new camera they release as well.

Except that Canon has given them permission to decrypt them.

--
Jeremy |

McLeod wrote:

Adobe Camera Raw fully supports the new NEF including the "encrypted"
white balance as I pointed out at the start of the discussion.

No, it doesn't. It "fully supports" the new NEF *except* for the
white balance.

--
Jeremy |

In article .com,
Barry Pearson wrote:
Paul Furman wrote:
Alan Browne wrote:
[snip]
However, I just did a test of 22 files in a directory. The DNG's
are
26% to 41% (33% avg) smaller than the K-M RAW files. So, I'll be
giving
this a re-think respecting backup/archive logistics.

Watch out for lost EXIF data though.
: - (

Yes, that is a problem. My experience is that the DNG Converter handles
all the EXIF stuff in the same way that ACR does. For example, for my
camera, I believe both ACR and the DNG Converter don't copy across the
lens model. (Just the focal length). This appears to mean that anyone
who is happy with ACR should also be happy with DNG.

It is my understanding that this changed significantly with DNG/ACR 3.x

With DNG 2, you either lost all that manufacturer-private data, or you
chose to embed the entire original RAW file in the DNG, approximately
doubling the size of the file.

With DNG 3.x you can apparently just embed the MakerNote tag, which
is where almost all the extra metadata can be found. You still can't
get at the fields within it easily, but you haven't lost the data.

If, at some time, EXIF gets extended to have a field for identifying
the lens in use, or any of the other missing pieces of information,
it would in principle be possible to re-process a DNG 3.x file (the
DNG converter accepts DNG files as input ...), extract the values,
and create a new DNG with the EXIF fields filled in.