[fri98]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I really made me think about it.

As the tittle says. Recently I bought a Pentax Q-S1 and I've been saving the photos as JPG format, and a few days ago, I decided to explore its DNG capabilities and realized that if I take a photo with the Bold B&W filter on, the DNG file is saved with the filter on, even if I open the DNG file in affinity, it shows it as a monochrome image. This doesn't happen with my Pentax k3 Mark III. In this case, if I open the DNG file in the windows photo app, it shows the file in B&W, but if I open the file in affinity, it will show the photo in colors.

Does this mean that the Q-S1's DNG file is just some sort of "glorified JPG", or that the K3- mark iii lack this capability of saving raw monochrome files (or DNG with filters on)?

Thanks for any shared knowledge about this.

[R.Miller]

Here is a quote as to what a DNG is:

DNG is the short name for a Digital Negative, an image format that Adobe created in 2004. It’s what is known as a RAW image, although in many cases, it isn’t captured directly by the camera, meaning it isn’t the native RAW format for most cameras.

DNG is not a glorified JPEG. It is a form of RAW, but not exactly the same as a native RAW file such as PEF. Image editing software and also the built in Windows photo apps read the EXIF and other data captured by the camera. This data includes camera settings, lens and camera profiles. Not all software reads this info exactly the same and some software will ignore some of the data. That is really all there is I think to the differences you are seeing. It's not about the camera, but rather the software being used to read and process the files.

[kypfer]

Some software will read the DNG using the settings in place on the camera at the time of exposure … so if your K-3iii has Monotone chosen as the Custom Image setting, (see p78 in the Operating Manual), any RAW file taken will initially show in DCU as a monochrome image … of course, being a RAW image, you're free to use DCU to apply any of the other available settings should you change your mind.
Other software may have problems handling Pentax-specific in-camera settings so might ignore the original choice and just display the basic RAW file as a full-colour image.

[Fogel70]

It is probably just the software that do not have a profile for reading all settings from K3-3 DNG, but have for the older Q-S1.

Have you checked if there are any updates for the softwae you use?

[fri98]

Wow, thank you so much guys. I guess it is something related to my editing software (Affinity V2.0). I guess it has to be that it can't read all the settings from the K3-3 DNG. After reading your comments I opened the DNG in GIMP and it showed it in B&W, so definitively is something missing in Affinity, not a problem at all, it just caught my attention and made me wonder about it. This is my "Today I Learnt" post hehehe

[kwb]

I have K-3III (and KP) and Q7. When shooting in RAW with "Bold Monochrome", both produce RAW file with embedded B/W jpeg and full color RAW data, but there's an important difference in EXIF, and that's the culprit as others wrote.

On modern K DSLRs, Bold Monochrome is a Digital Filter, which could be turned ON and OFF, which overrides Custom Image ("Bright", "Landscape", "Monochrome" etc.) as far as embedded jpeg is concerned. Custom Image cannot be turned OFF, you (or the camera) have to select one even when it's overridden by Digital Filter. For example you can shoot using Bold Monochrome Digital Filer ON while your base Custom Image setting is "Bright" (i.e. color, not monochrome). And these things are written into EXIF.

Even though Q7 has Digital Filter and Custom Image like on K DSLRs, Bold Monochrome is neither of these, it's a Smart Effect which is somewhere between Custom Image and Digital Filter. Your Custom Image name is set to "Monochrome" in EXIF when Smart Effect is set to "Bold Monochrome" for example.


Here are two examples of how different software handle it differently, though I know nothing about Affinity.

First, Pentax's DCU, which knows nothing about Digital Filter nor Smart Effect but has a limited knowledge of Custom Image. When you open the Bold Monochrome RAW file in DCU for the first time in Browser mode, it ALWAYS displays embedded jpeg. The picture looks like SOOC jpeg would look. Whenever you move to "Laboratory" mode, DCU uses its own rendering. When you do this for the 1st time, it ignores Digital Filter and Smart Effect, but tries to apply the matching Custom Image profile. In case of K-3III Bold Monochrome shot with color (e.g. "Bright") Custom Image, this means that DCU displays it in color. In case of Q-7, since Custom Image name is set to Monochrome, DCU uses its Monochrome Custom Image profile, but without high-contrast setting specific to the Smart Effect (i.e. the rendering is B&W but very much different from how the SOOC jpeg would look). But you can easily switch to color if you want. Regardless of the camera, unless you actually edit the photo, getting back to Browser mode will show you the embedded jpeg again.

Lightroom ignores everything about Custom Image, Digital Filter and Smart Effect. It uses embedded jpeg when the users select the RAW file for import. Once the file is imported it does its own color rendering even when you don't edit anything. Of course you can manually switch to B&W.