DNG/NEF/RAW ....Nikon/Microsoft/Adobe/Canon

[lejazzcat]

So what do you all make of the whole affair ?
is Nikon backing itself against Microsoft, Adobe and Canon???!
Is that wise?? or will the 'wise' just have to move on to ride Canons wave...

http://digitalphotography.weblogsinc.co ... 0730057585
http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/main.html
http://www.photoworkshop.com/double_exp ... rRAW.shtml
http://www.photoworkshop.com/double_exp ... stem.shtml


and,
What are you doing to protect your image archives?
How will you store your digital files, on what will they last the next 30-50 years ? and how will we open these files in that age with every few years seeing file formats changing??

[Aussie Dave]

So what do you all make of the whole affair ?
is Nikon backing itself against Microsoft, Adobe and Canon???!
Is that wise?? or will the 'wise' just have to move on to ride Canons wave...

It's anyone's guess what Nikon will do next. Sometimes I wonder if they know...

and,
What are you doing to protect your image archives?
How will you store your digital files, on what will they last the next 30-50 years ? and how will we open these files in that age with every few years seeing file formats changing??

At present I save onto DVD's and who knows what is around the corner. All you can do is save onto whatever is the most practical at the time. If things change dramatically in 10-20 years time, we'll all need to copy our DVD's onto the new format (I guess).

As for the file format changes, I suspect the likes of TIFF and JPEG, being industry standards, would remain around for quite some time. New formats may emerge but new software is likely to have the ability to read these formats (and most probably RAW/NEF's as well). Especially considering the market for RAW files is only going to get bigger as more and more people move from fSLR or P&S's to dSLR's. if this was not the case, Microsoft would not be looking to integrate RAW into Longhorn.

[DionM]

Presently I keep my RAWs as Canon RAW format.

Once the dust settles I will convert to some sort of universal digital negative format, whoever wins out.

As for long term storage, I keep mine backed up on an external HDD and also onto DVDs. This is in addition to the full set of photos I keep on my PC.

As I upgrade HDDs, the photos get copied onto the new HDD and so on. The DVDs are really a "last resort" kind of backup.

[DaveB]

You did do a forum search on this and read this thread didn't you?

As far as media storage goes, I used to archive them onto multiple CDs. These days I archive them onto multiple hard disks (including some kept offline). Whatever you use, make sure you have multiple copies and make sure you keep moving them to new technologies as they become available (and stable!).
Don't wait until it's hard to get DVD readers before you transfer them from DVD to <insert latest technology here>. Lots of people have been caught over the years with files on old floppy or tape formats and no drives to read them with.

As far as file formats go, I archive camera-produced JPEGs as well as TIFF and PSD files. But these days 99.99% of my images start off as RAW files, and all of those I convert to DNG for use and archiving.
Many people are still cautious about this step, and it's a personal decision to commit to DNG. I know I can read the files with lots of different software (including my own if necessary) and the integration with Adobe's XMP metadata technology (in Photoshop and in 3rd-party software) makes managing the files bearable (I currently have ~40000 images in my library - I continually add new ones and [intermittently] purge batches of old ones).

For example, my scripts that ingest files from flash cards annotate them with tiny XML sidecar files which the Adobe DNG converter picks up and integrates into the IPTC metadata. One of the fields in that XML is a unique ID assigned to each image. I can edit the metadata (e.g. location, keywords, title, people) from software like iView MediaPro and it's stored within the DNG file. Even the crops and rotates I might apply to the image are stored in the metadata. Thus when I open a DNG file in Photoshop it's already got all that detail, which is automatically transferred to any TIFF/PSD/etc file I save it to.
Thus usually the only extra bits a "master" TIFF or PSD has are cloning, noise-reduction, and adjustment layers (and many images don't even have those). So for many of my images I don't even keep a "master" TIFF: the DNG is my master. It's certainly saved me a few gigabytes...

[lejazzcat]

Hi Dave, Yeah I did. Thanks mate

But its a bit worrying, so i was looking for a more open discussion, more 'low tech' in response than "mini SDK, NDA..." jargon.

And mainly usable advice on how to protect our images from these redundant file formats, unstable storage systems(DVD), archiving strategies etc ...

Its only something im beginning to worry about as my digital image library starts to expand alarmingly .

TIA