Notwithstanding “universal standard” is somewhat tautological, DNG is a standard. In the same way that MP3 is a standard, even though it can contain mono or stereo, constant or variable bit rate (CBR/VBR), a wide range of bit rates, chapter markers, and even additional metadata allowed for but not defined in the standard. I remember well the clear path I had to take as a podcaster — avoiding certain MP3 features because “many players” could not handle them, or did not handle them well. Chapter markers were added much later and some software (generally lazily written software) would have issues if they were present. VBR was an excellent idea but it caused problems for many potential listeners so CBR was the accepted norm.
DNG is just like this. The standard is written down. It’s out there. I don’t think it has changed, except in an additive fashion, since it was released. Not all software supports all features or data types. Putting a camera-native Bayer matrix or a fully rendered RGB matrix in a DNG makes them very different from a usage perspective, but they are BOTH DNG FILES and both follow the standard.
I cannot remember the situation, as it was years ago, but I have most certainly come across situations where some software and some TIFF files did not get along. I know the compression algorithm used was an important factor in truly portable TIFFs for a long time…
Yes, it clearly states it’s not really a problem “these days” but it certainly has been in the past. Actually, I am now recalling I had some software not that long ago that was not reading the rotation flag in TIFFs scanned by VueScan, so there’s a recent incompatibility (like in the last few years).
Perhaps in another 5-10 years DNGs will routinely be interchangeable.
[quote=“PhilHawkins, post:32, topic:32740”]
TIFF. I notice there are no threads from people having problems with TIF. I’ve been using TIF for as long as digital photography has been in existence. I have yet to find any software that cannot use TIF. I have yet to find a printer that cannot print a TIF. Not once in 30 years have I had problems using TIFFs. Easy.[/quote]
I will say it again slowly so you understand. ALL the world’s major museums. Galleries, collections and archives standardized on DNG well over a decade ago for many millions of images. Created by many cameras and many high-end film scanners.
Almost all other programs except Dxo handle DNG propperly. Photo Lab is the only thing out of step.
So unless YOU want to go round the world converting millions of DNGs to TIFF just so they will work with DXO it isn’t happening, got that?
Add to the museums the art galleries, other collections, archives etc. It is not just the photographers but archivists and others. So this then rolls on to archaeologists, historians, universities that work with these museums. So several whole sectors of professionals. These are organizations that would have multiple seats and stay on support.
Apart from that, a lot of Dxo users in multiple threads in this forum are asking for proper DNG support. So it is not just the sectors I mentioned above. There is no need to change workflow as all the other tools do support DNG.
DxO PL seems to be the only tool that won’t work with DNG properly.Dxo could start to become irrelevant to professionals in many areas.
No it’s not true, I just made it up… Of course, it is AFAIK true. I edit a Heritage Magazine and am part of a digital archive. We have to deal with the Museums and Archives.
This discussion came up a decade ago re Light room and Nikon CoolScan film scanners and they DNG was the universal RAW standard much like PDF is for documents. Lightroom supports the Nikon Scanners with both the Nikon software and the VueScan software (Nikon recommend it in place of their own)
I mean what form of DNG. It can be a DNG based on the RAW file or a DNG based on a TIF file. The first one is a R,G,B file, the second a RGB file. Note the comma’s.
I think a lot of people do not realize that the DNG files that PL supports are DNG files that have the original camera’s raw data stored still in its original mosaiced form. Additionally, and this is very important, the data in the file must be from a camera that is supported by PL.
Other formats that may be supported (I have not tested this) are linear DNG files from very specific sources such as Adobe DNG converter.
PL will only open raw files for cameras that it supports and the same goes for raw DNG files.
As many others have pointed out, I use 16-bit tif files for transferring the best quality file from PL to other software for further processing if required. I avoid DNG because they always tense to be larger than the original raw file and massive for linear DNG. Compressed tif in my opinion is a very standard format and much more universal than DNG.
I think a lot of people (museums etc.) have been duped by Adobe into accepting that DNG is THE standard whereas it is in fact Adobe’s standard.
Not all users are created equal. All the books in all the home bookcases in the world would be a lesser resource than all the libraries in the world.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I have made this statement in these forums. PhotoLab is first and foremost a camera RAW processor. That it handles the DNG form of supported camera files is a bonus.
There are (and have been) other “proprietary” standards that have been successful, not least PDF. It spent 16 years as a “proprietary standard” followed by another 8 years as an open standard still shepherded by Adobe, before finally, 6 years ago, throwing off the last shackles of its creator.
I will once again point out the issue I see in these conversations: berating DxO for not supporting [–insert your particular form of DNG here–] is not productive. Nor is insisting that DxO has to provide generic DNG support.
DxO support cameras (not scanners) and their key differentiator from the competition is their proprietary system of decoding Bayer (and lately X-Trans) matrixes with very high quality. If anyone would like DxO to support more device types then make the request in these forums and get people voting. Endlessly arguing whether DNG is “a” standard or “the” standard or “a waste of time” achieves nothing and probably just antagonises the DxO staff.
Nope. In the U.S., the Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives, and the National Library of Congress, among other entities, all specify uncompressed TIFF as the preferred digital format for archiving still photographic images. DNG is listed as an alternate. Oh, and all related working groups and guidelines encourage retention of the original image in its native format.
I tried to figure out what is preferred in Holland. DNG is not mentioned.
Preferred: TIFF,PNG
Acceptable: JPG,JPEG,JP2,JPX.
Formats are not limited to the above but if possible uncompressed.
Coming back to the original poster’s issue…I converted my 60 test images with Adobe DNG Converter version 15.2 in several iterations using ACR versions 2, 4, 6, 12 and 14 and opened the files in PhotoLab version 6.5.1…and found that module corrections were applied as can be expected based on DxO’s description of the conditions for such a case. The only condition that causes DPL to not apply corrections is the linear DNG. If your files are linear DNGs, you’re out of luck with automatic corrections in DPL.
The test also included conversions from earlier versions of DNGs (v14 converted from v12, which was converted from v6 etc.) and there was no issue with these copies.
My test files are Canon CR2 files and the test was run on a Mac.
@LSe , I propose that you provide a few of your DNGs for us to test with. Use a sharing service or shared folder on a cloud drive…or try to attach the file(s) to a post. You could also try to reconvert the DNGs with a current version of the DNG converter making sure not to convert to linear DNGs.
Hello @all, thanks for all your tips and hints and tests and the discussion of pro and contra DNG. I’ve “solved” the problem in the last days: I’ve deinstalled PL6 and deleted the “database” and “cache”. Reinstalled PL6 and not the optical modules are applied ot the DNGs. It takes me a few days to rebuild everything but now I’m ok with the current situation.
This is a large and steady market. Strange that DxO is cutting themselves out of it. Same issue with not supporting iPhone and Android DNG. PhotoLab does a great job with iPhone/Android DNG. There’s no good reason to cut themselves out of the mix.
Supporting linear TIFF inside DNG is a relatively easy task. Sure, some of the advanced lens correction may not work (most of it should, except out of DxO pedantry). The noise correction could be a little weaker. But DxO should make a best effort here.
If DxO is worried about giving the wrong impression (“not high enough quality”), sure show a warning about limitations every time one opens one of these only “partially supported” files. But DxO should surely give PhotoLab users best effort.
I’m expert enough in PhotoLab now, that it makes me really cross every time DxO forces me to use another tool.
Giving up an entry point into all the museums in the world seems strange. On the other hand, an entry point may not be enough. Enticing these museums to abandon Adobe would be an uphill battle. Those museums who care enough about software freedom to leave Adobe behind, are probably on Linux and using FOSS tools. Those FOSS tools are ugly and awkward but damn powerful at this point. There’s GIMP, DarkTable and RawTherapee which can all produce first class results in expert hands (not mine!).
That is the point. I keep getting told the solution is to change the workflow for many thousands of museums for many millions of images that are already in DNG
