NEF in CS5

[Richard Williams]

<p>ICC profiles because we need some way to describe the colour space of the camera, and dcraw can use them directly (in 100 years!) if you also have the lcms code. DNG profiles for cameras are interesting, and one useful feature of the DNG format is that these profiles can be embedded in the same files as the raw image data for safe keeping. But I don't know if any portable, open source code (our gold standard for long term compatibility) can do anything useful with embedded DNG camera profiles.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>ICC profiles because we need some way to describe the colour space of the camera,</p>

</blockquote>

<p>ICC profiles don’t (can’t) do that, they can describe output referred rendering see: http://www.color.org/ICC_white_paper_20_Digital_photography_color_management_basics.pdf</p>

[Richard Williams]

<p>You don't like the terminology used by dcraw? You should probably take that up with Dave Coffin rather than me!:<br>

http://www.cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/dcraw.1.html</p>

<dl><dt><strong>"-p camera.icm</strong> [ <strong>-o output.icm</strong> ]</dt><dt>Use ICC profiles to define the camera's raw colorspace and the desired output colorspace (sRGB by default)." </dt><dt><br /></dt><dt>The input (camera) profile is the tricky one, of course.</dt><dt><br /></dt></dl>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>You don't like the terminology used by dcraw? You should probably take that up with Dave Coffin rather than me!</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The terminology I’m not buying is: <em>Will you have an appropriate camera profile to do an accurate conversion. ICC profiles because we need some way to describe the colour space of the camera</em>. Or perhaps the interpretation of where an ICC profile is being used in this context is an area I’m not buying. ICC profiles generally describes the color space of the <strong>rendered, output referred data</strong> from the raw converter. If you can truly get scene referred rendered data, you could feed that to software that can build an ICC profile but again, its rendered data, its not raw, its not the color space of the camera (they don’t have a color space). A camera has “colors“ it really can capture and encode as unique values compared to others, that are imaginary to us. They don't exist. There are colors we can see, but the camera can't capture that are imaginary to it.<br>

An ICC “camera” profile does not define the raw data, it defines rendered data. You can use an ICC profile to define the encoding a raw converter produces <strong>after</strong> rendering, no argument there, not that an ICC profile is necessary for this (your camera JPEGs are encoded into a color space <em>without</em> an ICC profile. Adobe products do this <em>without</em> an ICC profile). Every raw converter has to make some decisions about what it wants to presume** for this data prior to the final rendering (unless it has the spectral sensitivity of the chip and the illuminant under which the image was captured). That’s not what ICC profiles do nor are they needed at this stage. Every converter does this differently which is fine and every converter can then encode from that assumed color space to a color space with an embedded ICC profile if it wants to. Each ICC profile is unique to that process. I can no more use a “camera profile” (which doesn’t fingerprint the camera really) from Bibble and use it in Raw Developer any more than I can take the same NEC 3090 display, profile it on my Mac and use the profile with that identical display on your Mac. Each <em>system</em> is different, that’s why they need unique profiles for this part of the “process”. But we don’t need any ICC camera profiles assuming we have a raw converter that can render the data and encode that data into a color space we can define (now using an ICC profile or some EXIF data).</p>

<p>**Jack Holms formally the chief camera color scientist at HP, who co-authored the ICC white paper above with me had this to say about the idea of a raw camera color space. The analogy to a film neg is useful because of this idea of scene vs. output referred in light of ICC profiles. The neg is scene referred if you will. The print you make is output referred if you will. Interestingly too is that we can easily build ICC profiles for scanners scanning transparency and can’t for the same hardware, Light source and software scanning a color neg:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Raw image data is in some native camera color space, but it is not a colorimetric color space, and has no single “correct” relationship to colorimetry.<br /><br />The same thing could be said about film negative densities.<br /><br /><strong>Someone has to make a choice of how to convert values in non-colorimetric color spaces to colorimetric ones.</strong> There are better and worse choices, but no single correct conversion (unless the “scene” you are photographing has only three independent colorants, like with film scanning).<br /><br />A purist might argue that a color space not based on colorimetry is not really a color space because it is not an assignment of numerical values to colors, defining colors as a human sensation. In the standards committees we decided it is useful to be able to talk about non-colorimetric color spaces so we allow them and use “colorimetric color spaces” when appropriate.<br /><br /></p>

</blockquote>

 

[barry_sanford]

<p>Hi Ken. I actually started out doing assembly on a Z80 in the late 70's but not as a profession, I was still in college at the time and was writing low level math functions for other programmers and for academic requirements. Guess I had a penchant for this kind of stuff. My reference to FORTRAN was given simply because it was the predominant language used by engineers at the time, while COBOL was used primarily by the accounting types. Pascal was just coming on the scene, but it never really made it past being an academic tool. It was soon eclipsed by DoD Ada, which also never had much commercial success, and only found a home in the military and some commercial aviation systems with military roots (e.g. Boeing).</p>

<p>You ask, what does this mean? In truth, it all means very little except to say that I've been around the computer software block a few times through the years, and have seen lots of crap come and go. This is why I'm not impressed with the current state of affairs in the RAW arena. The whole thing is still too dependent on the business whims of the various vendors, and on economic forces that have only short-term profit in mind rather than long term viability. For example, I'd bet Nikon couldn't care less if anyone could read a D2X NEF file 200 years from now. They're wanting to sell cameras and maximize profits today. Why else would they have encrypted the white balance in the D2X NEF file? If the camera makers were really interested in this issue there would be an industry-wide consortium to write standards, rather than just Adobe going at it unilaterally.</p>

<p>If computer history tells us anything about the future, it tells us that the next killer technology will leave the current technology in the obscure, if not forgotten, past. I still have Visicalc sheets on 8-inch floppy disks (assuming they are still magnetically viable) with no practical way of reading them these days. That obsolescence has occurred in only 30+ years! So what chance does a digital photo archive of today have 200 years from now? Even if we each spend the remainder of our lives continually updating our archives to new hardware platforms, new software versions, and new data formats, who will do it after we are dead? No one, that's who. While the notion of long term storage could mean as little as 5 years for some forms of commercial photography, it's of major importance to those of us who photograph primarily for historical and archive purposes.</p>

[zack_zoll]

<p>I'm not getting involved in this ... I was going to at first because I'm getting a D7000 with my Christmas bonus (okay, and some other money), but it seems like a few people in this thread are much more interested in proving how smart they are than helping to answer a question. Mr. Rodney (and to a much lesser extent Mr. hopefully-not-"the"-Garrison-K) are either the smartest photographers in the world, or just have a lot of free time. Personally, I'm too busy shooting and editing to learn what versions of these programs do what, beyond what I've gotta' buy to make my stuff work.</p>

<p>I'm sure Mr. Rodney will ask to see MY portfolio now too to learn if I'm worthy of speaking of him that way, but frankly I don't care. I like my work, and I'll be damned if I care about a know-it-all's judgement.</p>

<p>On an unrelated note, if you're still here Ziggy, nice shots. Personally I always get uncomfortable shooting nudes (I guess that's my 'traditional' personality), but you do an excellent job of it.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>I'm sure Mr. Rodney will ask to see MY portfolio now too to learn if I'm worthy of speaking of him that way, but frankly I don't care. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>Actually I don’t have to ask, you have a very nice gallery here for all to see (I specially liked image #1 and #15). But if you don’t care, that’s cool. Its nice to at least see sampling of people’s work here. </p>

[ellis_vener_photography]

<p>Agree with Andrew Rodney about the quality of your work Zach Zoll. I hope your portfolio serves you well. </p>

<p> </p>

[digitaldog]

 

<blockquote>

<p>Let us be the judge (the point of being transparent).</p>

</blockquote>

 

<p>I guess not. The point of being opaque? </p>

[garrison_k.]

<p>Judgments? What didn't you understand about Zack's post?</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>I'm sure Mr. Rodney will ask to see MY portfolio now too to learn if I'm worthy of speaking of him that way, but frankly I don't care. I like my work, and I'll be damned if I care about a know-it-all's judgement.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'm not sure what is sadder. The time you have on your hands to bully strangers on forums, or the void in your life that needs to empower yourself from bullying? You even need to reach back to stale threads.</p>

<p>Photo.net endorses aliases if they are used for the good of the community. Get over it, or go somewhere else.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>Photo.net endorses aliases if they are used for the good of the community.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Especially those who would prefer to hide behind them. <br>

At least Zack is talented enough to share his work, not fearing feedback or in his case, showing off his fine work deserving of compliments. Some apparently don’t have such work to show and would prefer to remain anonymous ( adj 1: having no known name or identity or known source). Or as Jack Webb used to say, “<em>the names have been changed to protect the innocent</em>“, which in this case, protect the poster and their “talents” or lack thereof. <br>

Don’t worry Mr. anonymous, I will no longer ask for transparency from you, or examples of whatever it is you do, its clear you will not share with us. We’ll just have to use your posts to sum you up. </p>

[garrison_k.]

 

<blockquote>

<p>We’ll just have to use your posts to sum you up.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Bingo. Kind of slow, but glad it finally sunk in. But who is "we"? Like you're some sort of god-like ring-leader here on PN? </p>

<p>There's plenty of aliases here that offer advice and help others. It might be a tough concept for you to grasp, but not everyone comes here for the glory, the google hits, or to capitalize by floggin their expertise via journals and workshops. Besides, you're proving to us that real name users are just as likely to troll.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>Bingo</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I suppose the single image you’ve uploaded to your “bio” page for your photo gallery will be sufficient and speak volumes about your photographic aesthetics and abilities. <br>

BTW, goggling <em>underexposed snapshot with a magenta cast</em> produces about 19,200 results <g></p>

[garrison_k.]

<p>What speaks volumes is your engagement with someone you supposedly dismiss.</p>

[digitaldog]

<p>We’re engaged? You buy the beer, I’ll supply the image content. </p>

<p>FWIW, I don’t even come close to fully dismissing everything you’ve written, we’ve (well I) have actually agreed to some valid points. Pointing out the flaws in your logic (which you never address or reply), or my opinion of your photographic skills, based on a single image (which I again have requested more representation and transparency which you continue to ignore), not withstanding. Anyway, enough said. We both have to sleep at night based on our own opinions of our understanding of some DI issues and with our comfort level of our photographic capabilities. I sleep soundly. I’m not at all afraid to post images or info about myself and take legitimate comments from the community. I’m sure I’ll see you in an upcoming post here when DNG and Apple Inc are again mentioned. </p>

[photo5]

<p>I just got CS5 and recently compared it to my favorite NEF processing software, Capture NX2. NX2 won. I do like to use Photoshop for image editing, but getting it from NEF to TIF is always done in NX2 to ensure maximum quality.</p>