Apparently, DNG files are as not universal as commonly perceived. I have a Fujifilm digicam that makes .RAF raw files, and the packaged raw converter will only make 8 bit tiffs with no editing capability, IOW fairly pointless.
No worries, I thought. I will convert the RAFs to DNGs, which are a universal format supported by RawShooter, a freeware raw converter. But RawShooter would have nothing to do with my DNGs, because the source camera was not supported. I would have thought that my DNGs would be just the same as any other DNGs regardless of the source camera. IMO, Adobe still has a way to go before they have a "universal" digital negative, but 98% (or whatever) users will never know that DNG is just window-dressing. I trialled SharpRaw, which seems very useful, but just before I decided to pay for the full license I got s7Raw, which is freeware developed specifically for .RAF files. Now that I've settled on a raw converter I'll pay the license for Picture Window Pro, which is a full 48bit capable editor at a reasonable price, to fine tune my 48bit tiffs. My preference is to save my RAFs untouched, convert and save the conversions as 48bit tiffs, and convert those to 24bit tiffs for printing or jpegs for transmitting as the need arises. regards, Anthony Farr > -----Original Message----- > From: Jan van Wijk [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Hi Paul, > > On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 20:33:16 +0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >I sometimes archive as DNG to save disc space, but only when the images are > not very important. > >With Pentax DNG, you lose the EXIF data. > > What is 'Pentax DNG' ? > > DNG is an Adobe (although open) format. > > The Adobe utility to convert Pentax RAW (.PEF) to DNG preserves > the standard Exif data like exposure and focal length. > > You DO loose some Pentax specific extensions to it, > like exact lense naming. I can live with that ... > > >There are times when I want to go back to see what > >the camera settings were, so the EXIF can be important. > > But these are preserved ... > > (at least in the DNG converter that comes with Phostoshop CS2) > > >I think future versions of the DNG converter will offer more support for EXIF, > >but for now, the RAW file is the only way to preserve this info with Pentax images. > > Maybe the future is already here :-) > (except for the real Pentax specifics) > > Regards, JvW > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > Jan van Wijk; http://www.dfsee.com/gallery
