[Anvh]

On the other side, I hate to be hitched up to Adobe. They like to orphan things with every version of photoshop that comes out. Try using a Pentax K-5 PEF in CS3. The biggest advantage of PEF in the past was the smaller file size.

Well you aren't DNG is free for everyone to use and it's well documented.
Many of the raw processors can use it.

And the problem you state now isnt a problem for DNG because it works differently.
PEF is different with every camera model but DNG is actually the same for all, at least how it's build and must be read so software that can work with DNG can open it no matter how old or new the camera and software is.
DNG is more like TIFF then it's closer to PEF actually

[Blue]

Well you aren't DNG is free for everyone to use and it's well documented.
Many of the raw processors can use it.

And the problem you state now isnt a problem for DNG because it works differently.
PEF is different with every camera model but DNG is actually the same for all, at least how it's build and must be read so software that can work with DNG can open it no matter how old or new the camera and software is.
DNG is more like TIFF then it's closer to PEF actually

The K10d was one of the first dSLR to write dng. The *istD wrote PEF or TIFF. One of the big camera companies dropped dng after 9 months. The niche and minority camera makers seemed to be the ones that adopted dng. Pentax was unique in that the adopted dng but kept PEF, until now. PEF no longer has the smaller file size advantage it held now that dng are compressed on newer cameras.

[emalvick]

The only problem I see with dng, is that you essentially have a negative. I'm guilty of "developing"many dng files in LR only to never output a jpg file. These same dngs may look awful if my children try to use them on whatever software exists in 50 years.

[philbaum]

Within the last few months, i've switched my K5 over to DNG and they seem to work fine. Some advantages to DNG that perhaps haven't been mentioned yet:

a. with PEF, one has to keep xmp sidecar files that record the LR adjustments for each file. Wtih DNG, that database information is kept within the DNG file without the need for sidecar files.

b. My windows 7 will read DNG files when i click on them, it won't read the PEF files without LR. As far as i know

Does anyone advise converting my old PEF files to DNG? Will that change past LR adjustments to the PEF file?

[DSims]

my kids may not be IT geeks who can/want to go to the trouble to decode 100,000s of unadjusted RAWs

You're kidding right? Your kids will be IT geeks, they just won't know it.

[Blue]

Ricoh adopted the dng early and never had a raw since then. This could be a Ricoh decision given that newer cameras compress the dng eliminating the smaller file advantage the PEF had in the earlier cameras.

[Anvh]

Ricoh adopted the dng early and never had a raw since then. This could be a Ricoh decision given that newer cameras compress the dng eliminating the smaller file advantage the PEF had in the earlier cameras.

hmmm they did more compress, 2 years before Ricoh bought Pentax....

[Anvh]

The K10d was one of the first dSLR to write dng. The *istD wrote PEF or TIFF. One of the big camera companies dropped dng after 9 months. The niche and minority camera makers seemed to be the ones that adopted dng. Pentax was unique in that the adopted dng but kept PEF, until now. PEF no longer has the smaller file size advantage it held now that dng are compressed on newer cameras.

What has that to do what you said earlier, it's totally unrelated....

On the other side, I hate to be hitched up to Adobe. They like to orphan things with every version of photoshop that comes out. Try using a Pentax K-5 PEF in CS3. The biggest advantage of PEF in the past was the smaller file size.

Are we now talking about software or camera support.
First off more software support DNG then PEF so from that view DNG is an easy decision.

Now the camera side... why would you want to have 2 different RAW types?
Besides that Leica use RAW for quite some time now, if it's good enough for them why not for Pentax, i really dont see the problem.

[Blue]

hmmm they did more compress, 2 years before Ricoh bought Pentax....

What are you talking about? PEF was compressed more on older Cameras but that isn't the case anymore in that dng is compressed more.

[Blue]

What has that to do what you said earlier, it's totally unrelated....

Historical perspective and breadth of use of DNG. Plus, Adobe was and is the driving force behind it and given they are a software giant, wouldn't be surprised by anything the were to do in the future.

Are we now talking about software or camera support.
First off more software support DNG then PEF so from that view DNG is an easy decision.

Both. Nikon, Canon and Oly use their own RAW.

Now the camera side... why would you want to have 2 different RAW types?
Besides that Leica use RAW for quite some time now, if it's good enough for them why not for Pentax, i really dont see the problem.

Options. Plus, it isn't that uncommon to have more than one. Even on the higher end bodies (D700), TIFF is still an option.

[kh1234567890]

a. with PEF, one has to keep xmp sidecar files that record the LR adjustments for each file. Wtih DNG, that database information is kept within the DNG file without the need for sidecar files.

With much more scope for things to go wrong and the file to get corrupted since it is rewritten every time you change its development settings.

[sjwaldron]

I switched to DNG the moment a Pentax camera offered it. I can't say Adobe's forced upgrade process wasn't good motivation. I used Photoshop CS2 for a long time thanks to DNG support.

[Anvh]

Historical perspective and breadth of use of DNG. Plus, Adobe was and is the driving force behind it and given they are a software giant, wouldn't be surprised by anything the were to do in the future.

What do you mean with that?
DNG is accepted as a standard so it's not in Adobe's hands anymore, well the development is but they can't change it too much any more.

Both. Nikon, Canon and Oly sue their own RAW.

Yes and what is the point?

Options. Plus, it isn't that uncommon to have more than one. Even on the higher end bodies (D700), TIFF is still an option.

Well good for you then that you can transform your DNG into TIFF, you can even make DNG file the same as TIFF, so all you've to do is change the DNG tag to TIFF and you can open it a stiff.
Adobe added some options to TIFF to make it more useful for camera and those are in the DNG extension, you need to delete those but for the rest DNG is a TIFF file.


beside that, i have never heard anyone besides me complain that we only Have JPEG as compress file.

[Blue]

What do you mean with that?
DNG is accepted as a standard so it's not in Adobe's hands anymore, well the development is but they can't change it too much any more.

Its a standard, but not the only standard. Adobe set the standard and muscled their way through the "open source" movement at the time. Go research open source on this matter. It isn't accepted as a standard by everyone.

Yes and what is the point?

That they haven't accepted or rather adopted it at least yet. You had to go to one of the "niche" or "minority" camera makers I mentioned earlier to get and example, Leica.

Well good for you then that you can transform your DNG into TIFF, you can even make DNG file the same as TIFF, so all you've to do is change the DNG tag to TIFF and you can open it a stiff.
Adobe added some options to TIFF to make it more useful for camera and those are in the DNG extension, you need to delete those but for the rest DNG is a TIFF file.

You kind of missed the point there. Plus, TIFF was around before DNG. TIFF has been around since the mid80s and was in fact developed as a common scan image format. The past 3 years I have primarily used DNG, and PEF to some degree. Mostly because I still use CS3 (probably not much longer though) and GIMP. Before 2008, I used TIFF mainly and still do on scanned images and a few other situations.

beside that, i have never heard anyone besides me complain that we only Have JPEG as compress file.

[Blue]

Within the last few months, i've switched my K5 over to DNG and they seem to work fine. Some advantages to DNG that perhaps haven't been mentioned yet:

a. with PEF, one has to keep xmp sidecar files that record the LR adjustments for each file. Wtih DNG, that database information is kept within the DNG file without the need for sidecar files.

b. My windows 7 will read DNG files when i click on them, it won't read the PEF files without LR. As far as i know

Does anyone advise converting my old PEF files to DNG? Will that change past LR adjustments to the PEF file?

You can get the Pentax RawCodec so your widows will display the PEF thumbnails. I have been using DNG mostly because I still use CS3 (and occasionally GIMP). If you don't want the boxcars, you can just delete them.

Edit: Here is the link for the Oct 28, 2010 release for Pentax Codec. It is for all PEF, K-5 and earlier. It will allow Windows Explorer view PEF thumbnails. I have had to reinstall it after updating certain software.

http://www.pentax.jp/english/support/digital/rawcodec_win.html