The public, archival format for digital camera raw data Raw file formats are becoming extremely popular in digital photography workflows because they offer creative professionals greater creative control. However, cameras can use many different raw formats — the specifications for which are not publicly available — which means that not every raw file can be read by a variety of software applications. As a result, the use of these proprietary raw files as a long-term archival solution carries risk, and sharing these files across complex workflows is even more challenging.

The solution to this growing problem? The Digital Negative (DNG), a new, publicly available archival format for the raw files generated by digital cameras. By addressing the lack of an open standard for the raw files created by individual camera models, DNG helps ensure that photographers will be able to access their files in the future.

[ via: Adobe: Digital Negative (DNG) ]

I’ve grown a bit suspicious of Adobe of late, but this seems to be a good thing. I wonder when/if/how the camera manufacturers are going to support this? Obviously the workflow benefits are killed if you need to transcode all your photos to the new format, it will only be really beneficial once most cameras support it as the RAW format. permanent link to this post