Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/04/25

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Subject: [Leica] Openraw Initiative
From: durling at cox.net (durling@cox.net)
Date: Mon Apr 25 08:21:54 2005

This is a little off topic for film-using Leica photographers, but will be
of interest to many of you.  As we know most high-end digital cameras give
photographers the option of recording their images in a proprietary raw
format.  This format saves all of the information recorded by the camera's
sensor.  Leica, to its credit, has adopted the Adobe DNG format for its
Digital Modul R.  Unlike the formats used by other manufacturers this is an
openly documented format.  This means that Adobe has published the exact
specifications for extracting the information in these camera files.

The other manufacturers, whose names may or may not start with N or C use
their own, partially secret, raw file format.  The problem is that they
often do not disclose how to fully decode your image files.  In some cases
even Photoshop can't extract all of the data.  Also at least one
manufacturer has dropped support for their earlier digital cameras.  Can
you imagine if you suddenly couldn't read your five-year old negatives? 
Granted film users don't have this problem but if you shoot digital it is a
serious concern.

Anyway there is a new initative to pressure camera manfacturers to fully
document ther raw file formats.  This can be found at
http://www.openraw.org/  They also have a press release that goes into more
detail at http://www.openraw.org/press/ 

Other than being on some mailing lists where this is being discussed I have
no personal connection with this initiative.  I do think it is important.

Mike Durling

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Replies: Reply from lmc at interlink.es (Luis Miguel Castañeda) ([Leica] Openraw Initiative)
Reply from henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff) ([Leica] Openraw Initiative)