“Adobe is to promote a ’standard’ alternative to digital cameras’ numerous ‘raw’ photo formats.

Dubbed Digital NeGative (DNG) format, Adobe’s proposal would not supersede the JPEG format used by almost all digicams these days, but the native formats such cameras offer users who want maximum, image fidelity.

These raw formats hold the image as taken, without the loss of data even mildest JPEG conversion involves, or adjustments made by the camera’s video processing electronics. The catch is that without compression, raw images are very large, limiting the number of them the camera can hold. Worse, different camera vendors use different, proprietary raw formats.

Adobe is to promote a ’standard’ alternative to digital cameras’ numerous ‘raw’ photo formats.

Dubbed Digital NeGative (DNG) format, Adobe’s proposal would not supersede the JPEG format used by almost all digicams these days, but the native formats such cameras offer users who want maximum, image fidelity.

These raw formats hold the image as taken, without the loss of data even mildest JPEG conversion involves, or adjustments made by the camera’s video processing electronics. The catch is that without compression, raw images are very large, limiting the number of them the camera can hold. Worse, different camera vendors use different, proprietary raw formats.”

[Original Article]

Before you squinch your eyes up or roll them to the digital heavens, read the entire article. Adobe is a well-respected outfit and they’re giving away the specs and needed format info for free. It’s not quite the same thing as ‘open source’ or ‘public domain’, but in this case, it’s probably close enough. They also hand out plugins for Photoshop versions that enables them to work with the new .dng format directly (for free).

As a means of getting the new format to spread, it’s not a bad start. Only time will tell if others are willing to support this move.