[Kobie]

Yes, using a very common, open standard file format (DNG) limits your options in the future as opposed to using a single manufacturer proprietary format. Not generally, but in this instance.

This is because how Adobe software deals with Adobe's own DNG files, and how much of a problem this is for some "power user" workflows.
The Problem is not the DNG format as such (I like that), but the problem is Adobe's softwares' behaviour. Adobe software treats manufacturer proprietary formats much better and more appropriate than their own DNG format.

It is a bit like a man, who treats other women much better and more appropriate than his own wife

Phew! Good thing I don't use Adobe software then

[Frater]

Phew! Good thing I don't use Adobe software then

Yes, then there's no reason to avoid DNG.
Provided that you know already today, that you will never change to Adobe software for the rest of your life

I'm like a person who likes too keep all options open. You can switch your archives from PEF to DNG any time later, but you can't switch back your archives back from DNG to PEF any time later. The DNG route is one-way. This is what I mean, when saying the DNG decision (even if happens to be perfectly fine today) might limit your options later in life.

[Mooncatt]

I'm still waiting on my camera to arrive, but in all my prior reading I seem to remember something about pixel shift raw files only saving as PEF and not compatible with DNG. Can anyone confirm or deny that?

[Oldbayrunner]

If you truly want to be up on what DNG does with raw format then read this ......https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/products/photoshop/pdfs/dng_spec_1.4.0.0.pdf

I'm still waiting on my camera to arrive, but in all my prior reading I seem to remember something about pixel shift raw files only saving as PEF and not compatible with DNG. Can anyone confirm or deny that?

Fallacy....Pixel shifted images saves to disk in either in camera format.

The problem is with some processing software not processing pixel shifted images correctly facilitating the need to use only certain software at present for those images.

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Last edited by Oldbayrunner; 08-11-2020 at 06:48 AM.

[Frater]

I'm still waiting on my camera to arrive, but in all my prior reading I seem to remember something about pixel shift raw files only saving as PEF and not compatible with DNG. Can anyone confirm or deny that?

Pixelshifts don't save as compatible DNGs. Not everything with a *.dng extension would be a compatible DNG. Only files which follow the published DNG metadata standards would be compatible DNGs, i.e. interpretable by DNG compliant software.

However, DNGs don't define, how several sub-images would relate to each other, with regards to full pixel shifts, half pixel shifts, or whatever else shifts. So DNG is unsuitable as a container for pixelshifts.

Should a Pentax camera still store pixelshifts in a DNG, then it is misusing the entire DNG concept. These DNGs wouldn't be camera agnostic any longer. It is safer to save pixelshifts as PEF files for now. Should DNG in a future revision define a standard to describe pixel shift relationships in metadata, only then you should consider converting the PEF pixelshifts to DNG pixelshifts.

If you let the camera create "wrong" (non-compliant) DNG already now, you might be stuck with them forever. Because I doubt, that Adobe's DNG converter will ever convert wrong, non-compliant Pentax DNGs to the latest compliant DNG revision, when time has come.

[Wheatfield]

I'm still waiting on my camera to arrive, but in all my prior reading I seem to remember something about pixel shift raw files only saving as PEF and not compatible with DNG. Can anyone confirm or deny that?

I do pixel shifted DNG files all the time. I process them with Adobe Camera Raw as well.
It seems to work well enough that I'm not prepared to change my workflow to something else.

[acoufap]

Pixelshifts don't save as compatible DNGs. Not everything with a *.dng extension would be a compatible DNG. Only files which follow the published DNG metadata standards would be compatible DNGs, i.e. interpretable by DNG compliant software.

However, DNGs don't define, how several sub-images would relate to each other, with regards to full pixel shifts, half pixel shifts, or whatever else shifts. So DNG is unsuitable as a container for pixelshifts.

Should a Pentax camera still store pixelshifts in a DNG, then it is misusing the entire DNG concept. These DNGs wouldn't be camera agnostic any longer. It is safer to save pixelshifts as PEF files for now. Should DNG in a future revision define a standard to describe pixel shift relationships in metadata, only then you should consider converting the PEF pixelshifts to DNG pixelshifts.

If you let the camera create "wrong" (non-compliant) DNG already now, you might be stuck with them forever. Because I doubt, that Adobe's DNG converter will ever convert wrong, non-compliant Penatx DNGs to the latest compliant DNG revision, when time has come.

All my Pentax Pixel Shift Resolution files are DNG. Raw Therapee and PDCU work properly with PSR DNG files.

Pentax simply extended the PEF and DNG specifications for their needs. To create an image from these PEF & DNG files properly, software has to take care of the pentax extension specification.

PDCU and Raw Therapee take care and Raw Therapee even is open source. So everybody can have a look how it works - at least software developers can if they like to.

IMO in this case it's really not important if the standard DNG specification defines how to handle multiple files in DNGs. It seems that Pentax took care that if other software can't handle the multiple image raw data areas, the foreign software will usually take the first of the images.

The four Pentax PSR image data within DNG containers is proprietary territory. Same goes for Pentax HDR DNG raw files. They latter contain three raw data images. We can discuss long time if this is acceptable. But IMO it was a good decision of Pentax to get these new features to market ... also for their native in-camera DNG implementation ... much better than waiting years until a standard is settled by an international committee. A standard may come later ... Pentax was a clear innovator here. And as such a proprietary solution was the way to go. It's simple as that.

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Last edited by acoufap; 08-11-2020 at 12:31 PM.

[stevebrot]

The four Pentax PSR image data within DNG containers is proprietary territory. Same goes for Pentax HDR DNG raw files.

Yep...the little secret that created the initial processing issues with those two outputs. The DNG spec is fuzzy while the parent TIFF/EP supports such as an explicit feature.


Steve

[Selvadero]

All my Pentax Pixel Shift Resolution files are DNG. Raw Therapee and PDCU work properly with PSR DNG files.

Pentax simply extended the PEF and DNG specifications for their needs. To create an image from these PEF & DNG files properly, software has to take care of the pentax extension specification.

PDCU and Raw Therapee take care and Raw Therapee even is open source. So everybody can have a look how it works - at least software developers can if they like to.

IMO in this case it's really not important if the standard DNG specification defines how to handle multiple files in DNGs. It seems that Pentax took care that if other software can't handle the multiple image raw data areas, the foreign software will usually take the first of the images.

The four Pentax PSR image data within DNG containers is proprietary territory. Same goes for Pentax HDR DNG raw files. They latter contain three raw data images. We can discuss long time if this is acceptable. But IMO it was a good decision of Pentax to get these new features to market ... also for their native in-camera DNG implementation ... much better than waiting years until a standard is settled by an international committee. A standard may come later ... Pentax was a clear innovator here. And as such a proprietary solution was the way to go. It's simple as that.

I am the beginner who started this thread, so please forgive my lack of understanding of all the details here, and help me with the bottom line. I do use Raw Therapee and I am experimenting with Pentax Pixel Shift in my K-70 to capture fine details and better color rendition in my photos of the rare plants that I study. I chose Raw Therapee specifically because their software can handle Pixel Shift and I do not have any need to pay for software that enables artistic representation of my photos - only scientific reality. If I understand this last post, I can still have the camera produce DNG raw files and Raw Therapee can properly process the Pixel Shift raw files taking full advantage of the multiple exposures even when the format is DNG. Is that correct?

[SSGGeezer]

I am the beginner who started this thread, so please forgive my lack of understanding of all the details here, and help me with the bottom line. I do use Raw Therapee and I am experimenting with Pentax Pixel Shift in my K-70 to capture fine details and better color rendition in my photos of the rare plants that I study. I chose Raw Therapee specifically because their software can handle Pixel Shift and I do not have any need to pay for software that enables artistic representation of my photos - only scientific reality. If I understand this last post, I can still have the camera produce DNG raw files and Raw Therapee can properly process the Pixel Shift raw files taking full advantage of the multiple exposures even when the format is DNG. Is that correct?

That iis what they are saying! You can just use the more commonly used DNG and Pixel shift and Raw Therapee will take care of it. For the work you are doing, it is a great system as long as your computer can handle the size of the files in either format. Hope to see your images here soon!

... My example was to demonstrate the qualification and professionalism of programmers, not necessarily only at Pentax, but possibly everywhere else as well. Generally shouldn't trust the quality of files blindly, and always check for known bugs in the internet. Possibly there are other bugs or flaws in Pentax-generated DNGs not known yet, because they don't jump into anyones face, so nobody discovered them yet. Who knows... there's always such a possibility. The smaller a brand's user base, the higher is the likelihood of bugs being undiscovered.

I spent twelve years doing software engineering prior to having gone to law school. During that time, I formed the impression that most programmers are generally like other humans - they don't have enough self-discipline and patience to do things well. I took the approach that my own code had to be perfect, because if that were the goal, then what I produced would be pretty good. Most programmers, frankly, aren't that good at thinking, themselves, and since one generally writes code that solves a problem in the way that he would do himself if he were processing the data, most code that's produced isn't much better than what the average WalMart shopper might have produced. Moreover, production schedules have gotten squeezed dramatically since the time I was working in that field, leading to the perennial question, "Do you want it done right, or do you want it done by Tuesday?".

What's really scary to me is embedded computer systems in cars, airplanes, nuclear power plants, etc.; I think it's a really big mistake to trust automation quite as blindly as we do.

[acoufap]

I am the beginner who started this thread, so please forgive my lack of understanding of all the details here, and help me with the bottom line. I do use Raw Therapee and I am experimenting with Pentax Pixel Shift in my K-70 to capture fine details and better color rendition in my photos of the rare plants that I study. I chose Raw Therapee specifically because their software can handle Pixel Shift and I do not have any need to pay for software that enables artistic representation of my photos - only scientific reality. If I understand this last post, I can still have the camera produce DNG raw files and Raw Therapee can properly process the Pixel Shift raw files taking full advantage of the multiple exposures even when the format is DNG. Is that correct?

I can still have the camera produce DNG raw files and Raw Therapee can properly process the Pixel Shift raw files taking full advantage of the multiple exposures even when the format is DNG. Is that correct?

That's correct. I only use Raw Therapee to create 16 bit tiff files from PSR DNG files. These files I continue to work at in Capture One Pro - much more intuitive IMO.

In Raw Therapee you have to go got to the raw tab (Alt-r). Then select the last entry in the drop down menu called "pixel shift". If your image is a pixel shift image you can select a mask to show motion between the images, ... and there are some other options like extracting only one of the four captures - if I remember right. Don't be afraid to try using it. As far as I know Raw Therapee doesn't effect your raw file. If you fear for your raw files simply work with a copy.

You may check youtube - if you search for "raw therapee pixel shift" you'll find some videos concerning this topic. Hope there's something to learn from. Good luck!