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11-03-2013, 12:02 AM   #91
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QuoteOriginally posted by Class A Quote
They are minimising the need to read brand-specific information.
QuoteOriginally posted by Class A Quote
You have to distinguish between Adobe and software bundled with a camera.
QuoteOriginally posted by Class A Quote
Adobe on the other hand cannot possibly support all extras of all models. For them accessing a standardised EXIF field is worth their while.
You seem to know enough about how Adobe's developers work to almost speak on their behalf ...

But from what I can see from Adobe they seem to expend a lot of energy making sure their products work optimally with new cameras all the time, be they from Fuji, Sony, Leica, Nikon or Pentax. That work extends, I am sure, to not only customising their RAW processing engine to suit the sensor type, AA filter etc of new hardware, but also colour sensitivities and a range of other camera idiosyncrasies. They even put effort into directly supporting tethering for some cameras, if the camera maker sends them a SDK ...

Adobe isn't the only game in town either - DxO, C1, dcraw, Raw Therapee, Aperture, etc etc are valid competitors, at least in RAW development. If ACR/LR's DNG output was garbage compared to competitors who were able to leverage extra information from the metadata or elsewhere to help them generate great output, I think Adobe would hear about it pretty soon and respond. Judging from their beta programs over the years, they do indeed get a lot of that kind of feedback, and incorporate it.

11-03-2013, 12:34 AM   #92
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QuoteOriginally posted by Class A Quote
In general there is no good reason for software to not process the K-3 DNG files. It is rather likely that if you patched the camera identification field that the DNG filed would be accepted and interpreted correctly.

DxO Pro Optic software may be a notable exception as they may need to incorporate very specific information about the sensor in order to achieve their highly optimised performance. There maybe some other software for which some camera-specific data may be relevant and hence there'd be a need know how to get to that data, but in general the storage format of the RAW data is standardised.

In general, however, Adobe does not want to write a new DNG parser for each new camera.
LR 3.6 reads K-5 II DNG files even though the K-5 II did not exist yet when LR 3 development was ceased.
Then DNG will fall behind proprietary formats like PEF. Adobe added lens correction to DNG, and they will add other camera/lens specific capabilities to DNG if they want to stay relevant. IF DNG doesn't add the camera specific capabilities then they will fall behind. It will become the "Jack of all and master of none" format. I'm not going to use DNG if it means lower quality results or crippled features.

DNG is an archival format. It promises backwards compatibility, not forward compatibility.
11-03-2013, 12:41 AM   #93
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QuoteOriginally posted by rawr Quote
You seem to know enough about how Adobe's developers work to almost speak on their behalf ...
Just spend some time on their feedback pages or their support forums.

You'll hear inside information from actual developers like Eric Chan (one of the main people behind ACR).

You'll also get sick of all the Adobe apologists who will make you believe that all Adobe bugs and shortcomings are really your problems.

Anyhow, there are only certain parameters that actually influence the RAW development process (e.g., WB, tone curve, colour mapping). You seem to think that by accessing metadata you could perform a better quality conversion. That is typically not true (with a few exceptions of exotic cases).
11-03-2013, 01:05 AM   #94
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QuoteOriginally posted by Winder Quote
I'm not going to use DNG if it means lower quality results or crippled features.
Why would it mean "lower quality results"? The data in a DNG file is essentially equivalent to the data in a PEF file.

Regarding "crippled features", that's more a question of the software that processes files (regardless whether they are DNG files or camera-specific RAW files).

You have to distinguish between the format and what that software using that format supports.

You can capture all K-3 specific features with today's DNG version already (through the catch-all "makers notes" field).

But Adobe can nevertheless decide to not support multi-area WB (or some other feature) with ACR.
They can decide to not support it for DNG files and not support it for PEF files.

If you want to use Adobe products then even choosing PEF won't help you, if Adobe does not see any sufficient ROI for implementing the software needed to support new features. If you don't want to use Adobe products then there is the question of why use DNG at all. It is not much of an archival format, if you are keen on brand-specific features, e.g., exactly the lens corrections that Silkypix produces for PEF files. In theory, future DNG converters could emulate Pentax-specific lens corrections, but in practice, DNG is only an archival format for those how are happy with what they are getting from DNG now (e.g., the Adobe supported lens corrections that are informed by Pentax lens profiles, but are otherwise the same for all brands).

11-06-2013, 10:00 AM   #95
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QuoteOriginally posted by Winder Quote
Features like the multi-area white balance are not supported by the current programs. I'm using LR4.4 and I'm getting good results, but not all the features of the camera are supported.
QuoteOriginally posted by Class A Quote
What features apart from multi-area white balance are you thinking of?

With respect to multi-area white balance: It appears to me that this feature applies different white balance adjustments to different parts in the image. If that is the case, I doubt it will ever be supported by LR (ACR) unless this feature finds more wide-spread adoption among more popular cameras.

N.B., given that white balance adjustments could be done before demosaicing, in principle, the adjustments could be performed on the RAW data in camera already. In this case, there wouldn't be any need for special RAW converter support.
QuoteOriginally posted by rawr Quote
Why? If the WB adjustment details are in the EXIF (and the new volume of EXIF data in the K-3 is huge, due to details about all the 86000 AE metering areas), they may (in theory) be able to programmatically parse it and apply the adjustments, just like they do to the 77 AE area exposure at the moment with Pentax. Other cameras with 86000+ AE metering areas and their tweaks are also successfully processed by Adobe and others with few problems (assuming everything the camera maker does is well documented).
In general, ACR and Lightroom support features that are catered for in the latest DNG specification. The core code of the DNG Converter, ACR, and Lightroom Develop module, is the same. Exceptions such as the Sigma Foveon sensor format are typically dealt with in a limited way using Linear DNG, which is still scene-referred but not mosaiced.

I have no idea what the multi-area WB does to the raw files. Perhaps the effect takes place before the data is put into the raw file. Perhaps there is a new version of DNG that I'm unaware of that can handle this. Or perhaps those Adobe products won't support it. I'll be looking out for information about this - help welcome from anyone who has extra knowledge of this.
11-06-2013, 10:13 AM   #96
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QuoteOriginally posted by Winder Quote
I don't know. I'm just now trying everything out.

DxO Pro Optic 9 doesn't recognize the K-3 DNG files, but it does my K-5. DNG is not as universal as everyone seems to think.

"The process of DNG conversion involves extracting raw image data from the source file and assembling it according to the DNG specification into the required TIFF format. This optionally involves compressing it. Metadata as defined in the DNG specification is also put into that TIFF assembly. Some of this metadata is based on the characteristics of the camera, and especially of its sensor. Other metadata may be image-dependent or camera-setting dependent. So a DNG converter must have knowledge of the camera model concerned, and be able to process the source raw image file including key metadata. Optionally a JPEG preview is obtained and added. Finally, all of this is written as a DNG file."
DxO has long been an exception where DNG processing is concerned. Apparently it still is.

I think I remember that this was because DxO did lens corrections, and needed data that was not explicit in the DNG specification. (If it is in Exif Makernote, which it probably is, that is actually held in the DNGPrivateData field, but I don't think DxO ever read that field).

I suspect it was easier for DxO not to read DNGs rather than put in the extra code to extra the Exif Makernote from DNGPrivateData.
11-06-2013, 10:26 AM   #97
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QuoteOriginally posted by rawr Quote
You seem to know enough about how Adobe's developers work to almost speak on their behalf ...

But from what I can see from Adobe they seem to expend a lot of energy making sure their products work optimally with new cameras all the time, be they from Fuji, Sony, Leica, Nikon or Pentax. That work extends, I am sure, to not only customising their RAW processing engine to suit the sensor type, AA filter etc of new hardware, but also colour sensitivities and a range of other camera idiosyncrasies. They even put effort into directly supporting tethering for some cameras, if the camera maker sends them a SDK ...

Adobe isn't the only game in town either - DxO, C1, dcraw, Raw Therapee, Aperture, etc etc are valid competitors, at least in RAW development. If ACR/LR's DNG output was garbage compared to competitors who were able to leverage extra information from the metadata or elsewhere to help them generate great output, I think Adobe would hear about it pretty soon and respond. Judging from their beta programs over the years, they do indeed get a lot of that kind of feedback, and incorporate it.
Remember that Adobe supply a DNG Converter that can convert other raw file formats to DNG. Then their software can process those DNGs successfully. Typically, the results of processing the native raw files and DNGs are indistinguishable. I converted all my PEFs to DNGs for several years, throwing away the PEFs, before Pentax cameras compressed DNGs in-camera so that I could use DNGs in-camera. It never caused me any problems.

Sometimes Adobe discover that the they are not processing the raws and/or DNGs of a new camera properly, then correct it. But what they always want to do is ensure that this works for the DNGs, not just the native raw files. In effect, there have been cameras where Adobe software itself didn't optimally process DNGs! (Most improvements to ACR and Lightroom raw processing haven't needed a change to the DNG specification. Just better ways of processing existing raw files, including existing DNG files).

11-06-2013, 10:36 AM   #98
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QuoteOriginally posted by Winder Quote
Then DNG will fall behind proprietary formats like PEF. Adobe added lens correction to DNG, and they will add other camera/lens specific capabilities to DNG if they want to stay relevant. IF DNG doesn't add the camera specific capabilities then they will fall behind. It will become the "Jack of all and master of none" format. I'm not going to use DNG if it means lower quality results or crippled features.

DNG is an archival format. It promises backwards compatibility, not forward compatibility.
They don't add "camera/lens specific capabilities". What they do is add features to the specification that are generally usable, even though, initially at least, they are only used by one camera and/or lens. So it doesn't say "do error correction for lens PQR by maker XYZ". It says "This opcode applies a warp to an image and can be used to correct geometric distortion and lateral (transverse) chromatic aberration for rectilinear lenses", and identifies parameters to that algorithm.

The K-3 outputs DNG version 1.2.0.0. So it is limited to features in that version of DNG, which is a few years old. There are many extra features in later DNGs that Ricoh/Pentax appear to have chosen not to exploit.
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