DNG. A question.

[Mike_Rimmer]

I watched this tutorial on Better Digital Photography which mentions the format.

I didn't quite get it, is DNG instead of or as well as RAW?

[mjs1973]

DNG is basically a RAW format. It was developed to be a more open source file format that could be universally used. My understanding is that the idea behind it is to standardize the RAW file format. Currently every camera company has their own proprietary RAW format which may or may not become obsolete as camera development progresses. If you are using a brand new camera, and trying to process RAW files using an older version of software, you may not be able to process the new RAW files. Some companies are not going to go backwards to update older versions of software to handle the new files. In this case, you have 2 options. Update your software, which can be pretty expensive, or convert your RAW files to DNG. It's an extra step, but you retain all of your RAW data. I believe that DNG files do not have the XMP sidecar files that store information so they take up less room than a proprietary RAW file.

[drg]

Mike,

The Digital Negative (DNG) from Adobe is a universal RAW format. More manufacturers are now using it straight from the camera. Pentax in the current (4.2010) Digital Medium Format camera they have released use it as a RAW format.

I wrote an article with lots of links and information for Photography Review in January 2009. (link below)

DNG – Format for the Future

The comments and discussion add some additional details. DNG files can be configured a number of ways including embedding the entire original Camera RAW file within the new DNG wrapper alongside the standardized data format.

There is a comment that I wrote that outlines some of the use I had made of DNG at that time.

If you have other questions let me know or post them here in the forum.


I looked over the Better Digital Photography link and did not find the reference to DNG? Perhaps I clicked on the wrong things.