Nikon and Adobe on RAW

Posted Sep 6th 2005 10:53AM by Jay Savage

d50 Yesterday—or 9/2, depending on which date on the release you pay attention to—Nikon issued a press release stating that Nikon and Adobe have come to an understanding over RAW/NEF files. In the bizarrely worded release, the two companies promise to work together for the good of their "common consumers" with no details as to what that might entail. Since Nikon goes on to defend its supposed role as and "innovator" and NEF's "pioneering developments," I think it's probably going to go something like this: Nikon will license NEF to Adobe (probably for a fee) for use in Camera RAW so that it can continue to disadvantage its customers by the use of a proprietary encrypted format without making them so upset they leave for Canon. And while it's not the best arrangement for consumers, the issue, along with Adobe's proposed open Digital Negative (DNG) spec will fall by the wayside because most people don't know enough about the technology to realize that they're being taken advantage of.

Or maybe that's just post-holiday cynicism.

[via dpreview]

Update:

I guess it wasn't just cynicism. According to Thomas Knoll, Nikon has in fact provided Adobe with and SDK that does nothing except allow Adobe to decrypt the white balance info to provide "as-shot" white balance info, allowing Nikon to continue with the encryption scheme and choose which vendors' software you can use to manipulate your RAW images.

Reader Comments

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1. If you read what Thomas Knoll has said it seems there is now an extra mini SDK which provdies for the encrypted White Balance.

Posted at 6:26AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Richard Earney

2. Richard,

Not exactly. The SDK provides tools, but they're basically a glorified export set that decrypts the white balance and includes it in a TIFF (which isn't too bad, really) or a JPEG (which is useless; why shoot RAW to being with, then?). The only way to get a RAW file with white balance info is to use the cracked, and possibly DMCA-violating, algorithms supplied by Bibble or Dan Coffin. Of couse, if you can extract the WB info from, say the supplied TIFF, you can in theory go back and apply it to the original RAW file. It's complicated, but it works. Sort of.

Knoll is convinced that using the SDK in combination with the reverse engineerd decryption algorithms is ok since the information that's being stored belongs to the photographer, not Nikon. But he also points out the Adobe is unlikely to risk having to prove that in court.

This announcement would seem to pave the way for Adobe products to directly access Nikon NEF files without resorting to possibly illegal reverse engineering.

Update:

Strike that; reverse it...or don't. As mentioned above, there is a new mini-SDK just for Adobe, in addition to the the standard SDK.

Posted at 6:26AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Jay Savage

3. Hearing about this stuff just helps to confirm me as a Canon user. Now if I could just shoot DNG with a Canon camera.

Posted at 6:26AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Twist

4. The easiest way I find to use DNG with Canons, is immediately convert your RAWs to DNG and just work with them.
No more messy sidecar files in PSCS :)

Posted at 6:26AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Richard Earney

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