Re: RAW vs JPEGs - Does RAW show more detail?

"Marc Sabatella" <marc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The problems with the concept are multiple, including:

1) will the software exist to recover your picture in 10 years,
20 years, and for your descendants, 100+ years?
(likely answer: no).

This is one reason why many if not most using this type of approach are
using DNG. Not that anyone necessarily thinks DNG will be around that
long. But it will be around longer enough to allow you to convert
everything to the *next* generation format. Just as DVD won't be around
around forever, but will be around long to convert all your backups to
whatever comes next.

Actually, Dave Coffin has made sure that virtually *every* raw
format will be accessable in 50 years. His dcraw.c source code,
which is freely available for use by anyone (and is the basis of
many if not most of the various raw converters available today),
is written in ISO/ANSI Standard C. The specification for
compiling it is an international standard, and will not be
"lost". Since it is currently capable of converting any raw
format being used, they will all be available forever.

DNG has no advantage, though that is a claim its supporters very
much like to push.

2) Every time you want to look at the picture, or do further
processing, you have to redo the computations, and that
means the user sits and waits.

As I have pointed out repeatedly, this is simply not true. Cached or
embedded previews are used by just about all programs that do this sort
of thing.

If you want to actually look at the picture or edit it further,
the entire conversion *must* be done again, and that is time
consuming. It is not a "background" process, it is one where
the user sits and waits.

The cached preview image is suitable for use in making
selections from a catalog of images to decide which on should be
converted. It is not suitable as the image to judge what edits
are made.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) floyd@xxxxxxxxxx
.

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