Monday, September 27, 2004
Adobe Systems Proposes New Universal Format for Digital Photos
Posted by James Fee in "NEWS" @ 07:00 AM
"Adobe Systems Inc. plans to introduce a new format for digital photos on Monday in an attempt to create an industry public standard to make the archiving and editing process compatible across all types of cameras and photo software. Most consumer digital cameras today capture images in the JPEG format, but a higher-quality raw photo format is gaining in popularity among higher-end and professional camera models. A major frustration among photographers, however, has been how different digital camera makers use different, proprietary versions of the so-called raw format, industry analysts say. That incompatibility has forced users, especially in media and other companies, to maintain multiple software programs to handle the raw photos taken by different cameras. It has also raised concerns that archived raw images could become inaccessible with future software. Now, Adobe, which dominates the photo editing market with its Photoshop products, is proposing that its new Digital Negative Specification, or DNG, becomes a universal standard for the raw format. The San Jose-based company is also launching a free software tool that will allow users to convert the raw formats from more than 65 cameras into the DNG format."
I can understand why Adobe wants to do this and as a consumer, I hate having to wait for Adobe and others to update their software to support new RAW formats, but what incentive do Digital Camera manufacturers have to change?
I can understand why Adobe wants to do this and as a consumer, I hate having to wait for Adobe and others to update their software to support new RAW formats, but what incentive do Digital Camera manufacturers have to change?
