OpenRAW today began releasing the results of their Summer survey to see who is using RAW, for what, and what those users want to see in an open RAW spec. Today is the first chapter: "Who Responded to the 2006 RAW Survey?". As it turns more than 19,000 people, mostly professional and "dedicated amateur" photographers. 77% of them shoot RAW all or most of the time. Today's results aren't really that interesting, aside from proving the scale of interesting in RAW, but one thing did stick out as iIwas reading: pros and pro-ams are more evenly divided when it comes to cameras than we're normally led to believe. Industry estimates usually have Canon DSLRs outselling Nikon almost two-to-one, but among RAW shooters, at least, the gap is much narrower, with 47% shooting Canon, and 34% shooting Nikon. The remaining results will be released through the week: *April 25th, 2006 - Chapter 1: Who responded to the 2006 RAW Survey? *April 26th, 2006 - Chapter 2: Perceptions of the Advantages and ...

The people at OpenRaw today announced a first of its kind survey to find out how people use RAW images, and how they feel about current RAW formats. The results will be made public and used to further OpenRaw's mission to get camera manufacturers to document all aspects of the various proprietary RAW formats on the market. In particular, the people at OpenRaw want to make sure that manufacturers have data from consumers in hand as they're trying to, say, decide which portion of the white balance info to encrypt this month. Simply having a survey out there won't force anyone to change the way they do business, but hopefully it will help some manufacturers chose to do the right thing by consumers, and give employees who want management to do the right thing some firepower. Go take it. [via SPT] ...

Almost all digital cameras (at-least the decent ones) support a format like RAW. RAW is the generic term given to unprocessed image files that most digital cameras create right off their sensor- like CRW in case of Canon and NEF for Nikon. In most instances, the file is converted to JPG or TIFF format to make it viewable in the camera or print direct to the printer, since JPG is almost universally understood. However, many people love to get their hands on this raw data dump to convert it on their PC and have more control on the finished product. The relatively smaller file size of RAW files compared to its non lossy equivalent - TIFF is another attraction.   All in all, RAW can be described as a negative, and the conversion algorithms as the developing/printing process that we had in the film world. The issue here is that every camera manufacturer has its own version of RAW, by some estimates there are almost 100 RAW format out there. The only way you can read a RAW file is by ...

A few days ago, it was reported that Nikon is encrypting the white balance settings on its raw (NEF in Nikon's case) image format. Essentially, unless you use Nikon's own NEF decoding application, it will not be possible to process RAW images out of Nikon's cameras. To avoid being held hostage by camera makers, Adobe proposed the DNG format for this specific issue - so all vendors can use the same negative format. Funny to see Adobe crying foul about DMCA though.   Recently, Dave Coffing broke the the encryption and was able to read the white balance levels in NEF files. The software - dcraw is available for download on his site. It should be interesting to see Nikon's reaction and how other camera makers rush to "protect" their native image formats.  Is Adobe to be trusted with the DNG format? For now, Photoshop's RAW convertor cannot access Nikon WB settings.   More Coverage: [news.com] [Engadget] [dpreview] ...

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. ...

Over at Slashdot, there is an interesting discussion about the OpenRAW team trying to create a RAW format repository. The repository will serve as a resource that has the definitions for all the current and past  RAW formats and will be hosted on the uber cool visionary site www.archive.org. Camera makers, including Nikon and Canon, who keep their RAW format specs close to heart may not be super excited. ...

Camera RAW 3.3 is officially out of beta. If you've been using the beta, there's not much to say. If you're upgrading from 3.2...there's not that much to say, either. 3.3 hasn't made any giant leaps, although it does include a tweaked Bayer algorithm and faster zoom rendering in some situations. The big change is support for 17 new camera models, including the Nikon D200, Olympus E-500, and Pentax *ist DL and *ist DL2. ...

Those of you who are dreaming that iPhoto 5 will solve  all your RAW related workflow issues may want to read up on this real quick. iPhoto does not do all the tricks that attracted you to using RAW in the first place. It supports RAW, but does not truly embrace it. ...

This one is for those of you out there who are shooting RAW and using OSX "Tiger," as a sort of follow-up to our command line utilities series: RawConvert from Information Graphics is an Automator action to convert RAW files into Photoshop PPM. Since it uses dcraw.c, RawConvert shares code, as we've discussed here before, with most other RAW converters out there, including the Camera Raw plugin, so you get reliable, familiar results. You can adjust some of the most frequently manipulated settings, like red and blue levels and brightness, directly from pulldowns and text boxes in the action, and vitually every dcraw flag should be available for tweaking in the action source. If you use Photoshop CS2 regularly and tend to edit a picture at a time, this may not prove very useful, but for those who use a different imaging suite or want to run batch conversions from someplace other than the command line, RawConvert is a pretty neat little action. ...

The Adobe Camera Raw 3.2 plug-in has added GPS coordinates info handling from RAW files such as NEF and sidecar XMP files. Useful for those into Geotagging. The latest verson also includes expanded support to a range of cameras - Minolta Maxxum/Dynax 5d, Nikon Coolpix 8400/8800 and several more. [Via Shahine.com/.omar/] ...

Browsing folders full of images as thumbnails or in filmstrip mode is my favorite thing about Windows XP. Then I started shooting in RAW format but I couldn't see any thumbnails or previews. Sure there are plenty of RAW viewers and I could open Photoshop and look at them there, but that is not the point. Microsoft now offers a free PowerToy Raw Viewer. I am waiting for the 47MB download to finish right now. In the meantime let me warn you that even something free costs something, and the price this time is some minor aggravation. You first have to validate your version of XP (unless you have already done this) by finding the XP product key which if you are lucky is on your computer, otherwise go find your XP software manual in that box in the attic. You also need Service Pack 2 and .NET Framework 1.1 installed. OK…software is downloaded and installed. By simply browsing to a folder with RAW files and viewing in thumbnail mode, I get my preview (just like with ...

We have written that JPEG as good enough for most pictures. WSJ makes the case to stick with RAW/TIFF formats for that final bit of performance. With falling memory card prices and better digital cameras to be had, and software like iPhoto supporting it, RAW (unprocessed image dump - think of it like a negative for your digital picture) shooting is now easier to use than ever. To learn more about RAW head over the to the new Openraw.org site - which is making sure RAW formats get some standardization. ...

Apple has finally fixed iPhoto. In the new version 5 announced today at Macworld -  iPhoto promises long awaited features that make it almost ready for all but the most advanced photo geeks. Some of the cool things they added: Histograms and other Advanced Tools RAW Import Movie Support - Many cameras have this, so all files are now in one place New Books from 3.99 and Prints from 19c ea. Updated every other component including Slideshows, Folders, Editing..  Buy for $79, or get it free with the new Mac Mini at $499 .. Perfect backup/photo server?   ...

Part II of an ongoing series. dcraw is Dave Coffin's original RAW processor, wich currently supports more than 100 cameras and is available for all platforms. Most systems should already have some version of the program installed, since Dave's routines form the core of most third part RAW processors, including Photoshop's Camera Raw plugin and the RAW support built into ACDSee, Picasa, Graphic Converter, and ImageMacgick, among others. From the command line, dcraw is invoked simply by typing dcraw -o OUTPUT_FILE RAW_FILE and options for white blanace, red and blue balance, and histogram manipulation. Since we're operating directly on the raw sensor output and each manufacturer and individual camera has its own quirks, knowing which values, if any, to tweak is still something of a black art. Trial and error are the way to go until you figure out what works for your camera. dcraw's default output is NetPBM's PPM format, but recent versions will export to Adobe PSD as well. If you aren't ...

Derrik Story, O'Reilly's DP guy and author of, among other things, Digital Photography Hacks and Digital Photography Pocket Guide, has been playing around with Aperture on his 17" PowerBook. On the whole, he's pretty pleased with the performance: things would certainly go more smoothly on one of Apple's new dual core G5 towers, but he can get work done on his his 1.5 Ghz G4 laptop. His only big gripe so far is that Apple's vaunted RAW workflow support only extends so far. Aperture will only work on RAW fils imported directly using its own RAW converter; Camera RAW CR2 files aren't a supported format: I was disappointed to discover, however, that I can't link directly to Camera Raw for editing my Raw files in Aperture. I can use Photoshop as an external editor, but only in the .PSD or .TIFF format. So if I open a .CR2 file (contained in Aperture) in an "external editor," (Photoshop CS2), then Aperture opens a .PSD version of the file in Photoshop. Once I make my adjustments, the changes ...