Displaying DNG thumbnails in Windows XP

[ericc]

Courtesy of Ivan Glisin

1. Open Notepad;
2. Paste the following lines to editor window:
   
   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
   
   [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.dng\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
   @="{3F30C968-480A-4C6C-862D-EFC0897BB84B}"
   
   
3. Save file as "dng_thumbnails.reg";
4. Double click on "dng_thumbnails.reg";
5. Confirm that you want to add content to the Windows registry.

[clarenceclose]

I'm a little dense on this one.
Please tell me why or where I would use this technique.
Being slow, I work best by example.

[carpents]

This allows you to see a thumbnail picture of the DNG file while browsing your hard drive.

Better?

(PS - Thanks, EC)

[JCSullivan]

I'm a little dense on this one.
Please tell me why or where I would use this technique.
Being slow, I work best by example.

Clarence, that makes two of us. Now what's a dng? I know I can google it but I'm sure others have the same question.

[kjask]

thanks a lot, ericc!

[xinaesthetic]

Clarence, that makes two of us. Now what's a dng? I know I can google it but I'm sure others have the same question.

Well, then other's can google

DNG is Adobe's 'Digital Negative' raw file format. Many people hope that it will provide a common shared raw file format. There's a bit of a debate about wether or not the format is the way forward.

It has the distinct immediate advantage that you can convert PEFs to DNG losslessly and have them take up around half as much disk space. There's a free utility for doing that in batch. Not all software will support them in that format, though.

Barry Pearson has collected a lot of information about the format.

This has been a major source of procrastination to me in sorting out a workflow, as I'd quite like to use Bibble, but they refuse to add DNG support and I'd also quite like not to waste half my disk space. I can see that it's not the be-all & end-all, but I don't think we'll be getting anything better in the forseeable future.

[regken]

Thanks but,
When I open explore it shows the dng file in the small scroll at the bottom but doesn't show in preview. What am I missing?
Thanks for your help.
ken

[roscot]

It is also an option in the K10D to save raw files as DNG natively, although they are not compressed at this time.
-Alan

[ericc]

Thanks but,
When I open explore it shows the dng file in the small scroll at the bottom but doesn't show in preview. What am I missing?
Thanks for your help.
ken

You may need to reboot. Also, you will need to be in Thumbnail or Filmstrip viewing mode in Windows Explorer.

[chicagonyc]

Can PEF files be seen in Windows Explorer, too, or only DNG?

[clarenceclose]

Now it makes more sense. I don't have application for this now but will take a look at it later when I get one that can do camera RAW.
Can this be done to allow previewing of Photoshop native format .psd files?

[ericc]

Can PEF files be seen in Windows Explorer, too, or only DNG?

Just DNG.

If you want PEF files to be visible, you need to appeal to Microsoft to include Pentax formats in their RAW file viewer. Currently it only supports N* and C*.

[ericc]

Can this be done to allow previewing of Photoshop native format .psd files?

I don't think so. If you installed Photoshop, you already should be able to preview .psd files in thumbnail mode.

[jthommo]

That little dng icon for half my files in windows was really annoying and even a technophobe like me found it dead simple. Thanks!

[Scott Rylance]

Thanks Eric..works a treat.