I would like to suggest that the limitation of only “known” cameras be removed.
I would like PhotoLab to open any image in any known format, regardless of whether PhotoLab supports the camera.
To keep everyone happy, when PhotoLab opens an image from my old Leica M8, or my old Nikon D2h, it could simply provide a warning that the image is from an un-supported camera.
It is silly that I can open those images after changing the EXIF data to some camera PhotoLab supports to something PhotoLab has recognized - but I have to “cheat” to get PhotoLab to open them. Doing it my way works fine for my needs.
As of now, I can either “cheat” with the EXIF data, or I’m forced to use other software instead of PhotoLab.
Such an easy change to implement - and without it, I’m now editing those images in DarkTable.
This is yet another repeat of a subject that has been brought up many times. Might I suggest you find one of those messages, in the appropriate “Feature Requests” forum, and add your vote to one of those already there.
And you have precisely how many years of Windows/Mac cross-platform programming experience to base that assumption on?
Do you realise just how many body/lens combinations there are? And, to support them al, someone has to acquire the equipment in question and test it. Not to mention cross make adapters that allow one make of lens on another make of camera.
And I don’t see the problem with converting to TIFF and editing that in PL. After all, we all used to do a similar conversion to use Photoshop, nor matter what the camera.
I’ll either “cheat” and call my unknown camera a Leica M10, or use different software.
If as you write, it’s already “been brought up many times”, one more likely won’t make any difference. Sorry for wasting everyone’s time by even suggesting this. …again.
In order to do that, DXO would basically program it to read the metadata and use settings for a like file that is supported. And that’s exactly what you do by changing the EXIF data. I can’t see a programming team wanting to implement this approximation method in a pro software.
The extension is always NEF. Compression is implemented internally. Even looking at the physical file size of around 3MB is an indication of compression - uncompressed files are normally around 6MB.
And Mike is the only one on this forum that use compressed raw files? I don’t believe that. In matter of fact I use lossless compressed. mRaw and sRAW seems to be file extensions.
The camera is long-since gone. It stopped working, and go replaced by Nikon three times, once with a better version of the D2hs (?) and finally by the D2x which I still own, but never use.
At the time, I wasn’t smart enough to deal with different versions of “raw”. Nowadays I try to avoid compressed anything.
Regarding the file sizes, remember the D2 series Nikons had a crop-sensor. The D3 was the first with a full size (FX) sensor.
You are all correct - I never should have assumed that creating a generic format rather than specific formats would be easy. Anything is easy for those that don’t have to do the work.
95% of the time, for all my “work” photography, I used ‘jpg’ mode. That’s what the magazines wanted. They very specifically did NOT want ‘raw’ images, and “the customer is always right”, right? They did not want the extra work.
Canon: mRAW and sRAW are not supported, while cRAW is supported.
Absolutely. most working press photographers do the same. I have a good friend who doesn’t even know how to process his pictures, he just sends them to his picture editor.
Copyright 2010-2015 Douglas A. Kerr. May be reproduced and/or distributed but only intact, including
this notice. Brief excerpts may be reproduced with credit.
The Canon sRaw and mRaw Output Formats
Douglas A. Kerr
Issue 3
November 17, 2015
ABSTRACT AND INTRODUCTION
Many digital cameras (including many Canon models) offer an optional
form of output file in which the data does not directly represent a
“finished” image but rather is a more-or-less verbatim transcript of the
digitized output of the collection of individual sensor photodetectors.
This is referred to as the “raw” output. Recent middle- and upper-tier
Canon dSLR cameras offer two alternatives to this output file type,
described as the “sRaw” (“small raw”) and “mRaw” (“medium raw”)
output files.
Exclusive to Nikon cameras, the NEF is Nikon’s RAW file format. RAW image files, sometimes referred to as digital negatives, contain all the image information captured by the camera’s sensor, along with the image’s metadata (the camera’s identification and its settings, the lens used and other information). The NEF file is written to the memory card in either an uncompressed or “lossless” compressed form.
The primary benefit of writing images to the memory card in NEF format rather than TIFF or JPEG is that no in-camera processing for white balance, hue, tone and sharpening are applied to the NEF file; rather, those values are retained as instruction sets included in the file. You can change the instruction set as many times as you like without ever disturbing the original image’s RAW data. Another benefit of the NEF file is that depending on the camera, it retains 12-bit or 14-bit data, resulting in an image with a far greater tonal range than an eight-bit JPEG or TIFF file.
After-capture processing of the NEF file by Nikon’s Capture NX2 software, or other imaging programs, offers greater control over the final image than the processing of a JPEG or a TIFF. After processing, the NEF file can be saved as a TIFF, JPEG or again as a NEF with the addition of any applied Capture NX2 processing saved inside the file as a second or alternate instruction set. As long as the original NEF file is preserved, the “digital negative” remains untouched; processing a NEF file does not alter the original instruction set.