Digital Update: Raw Files and the Digital Negative
BY NEAL RANTOUL
Neal Rantoul
There is so much going on in the world of digital capture it’s a little hard to know where to begin. I’m just starting at the tip of the iceberg here but the two most important topics are probably Adobe DNG and Apple’s Aperture.
Adobe DNG
RAW files from mostly digital single lens reflex cameras (DSLR) have taken off over the last several years and everyone’s fighting with how to handle them. RAW is the system that lets you transfer the original file from your camera without it being manipulated, compressed or interpolated. Do you use Photoshop CS2’s RAW file handling capability before you bring the files into Photoshop? Do you use your camera manufacturer’s RAW file management system? Or do you just give up and pull them into the newest version of iPhoto? Add Apple’s new Aperture to the mix and you’ve got a recipe for a lot of confusion. What if you’ve got a new camera? Is it supported?
Adobe’s trying to solve the problem by creating the Digital Negative (DNG) specification system.
But first, some background: When the RAW format was first introduced several years ago it wasn’t from a central source like Adobe or Apple, it came from several, then all the DSLR makers, each with their own proprietary systems and often each new camera had its own file format designation as well as its own software. As these were specifications that weren’t published it could take months before the download was available from Adobe for new cameras just on the market. As the field of digital capture is changing very rapidly this can put photographers behind even though they are trying to stay current. Photoshop CS2’s RAW plug-in is universally regarded as being very good but not so good if it won’t open your RAW files for your new camera because no one’s written the protocols yet.
Now in comes Adobe with a new format they hope all camera manufacturers will adopt called DNG (Digital Negative). This behaves much like the proprietary RAW system in use now but universalizes all these systems into one that they hope camera manufacturers will adopt. Time will tell but there already are a few companies that include this in their camera’s firmware: Hasselblad, Leica, Ricoh and Samsung.
So, what are we to do? Wait, most likely. Hope that some universal system like Adobe DNG will come to the front that allows us to open our RAW files easily even with newer cameras. In the meantime, you can, of course shoot RAW and open your files with the software supplied by the manufacturer, then transfer those now converted RAWS into Tiffs, then open them in Photoshop. Sound fluid and fast? Nope.
Apple Aperture and Adobe Lightroom
Apple’s new Aperture is the present buzz in the industry and just out as of early December. Aperture promises much and delivers lots, but its use is not without controversy. Aperture is designed to help us manage our images, streamline our workflow, organize our archiving and facilitate our outputting. It also will handle RAW files (as will iPhoto’s version 5.0.4) but it is a bold new step in digital image management and has, perhaps been offered before all its bugs are worked out. For instance some of the chat states that it converts the files with some image quality loss. I can’t confirm this but if true Apple will want to correct this very soon. Aperture has already been updated and the assumption is that it will need to be frequently. It isn’t designed to replace Photoshop as its image manipulation and image controls are far less extensive than Adobe’s but it is designed to help us organize and store the massive amount of photographs we are making better than anybody’s else’s system. The analogy is close to buying a car in its first year on the market, some are diving in and some are waiting for the bugs to be worked out through updates. What is encouraging is that Apple seems fully behind this new project and seems determined to be a player in the future. This means that their engineers will be responsive to changes in the marketplace and that there will be the needed software updates. I have dived in and am as confused as anyone else but am impressed with the software’s fluidity and inherent beauty (software beautiful? Yes, I think so) and am looking forward to learning this new way of handling our images. By the way, Aperture does take RAW files but can’t see the files from my new Nikon D200, which is just out.
This is, from all reports, even better than Aperture but is only available now in beta form as Adobe wants photographers to use it and then give them feedback on how it works. The final version is due out early this summer. It looks like these two giants are setting the stage to take each other on in terms of file management systems for us, the pros. It feels kind of good to be catered to, finally.
DNG and beta Lightroom are free from Adobe and Aperture can be had for much less with an educational discount.
In conclusion, we are clearly on the threshold of yet another sea change in still imaging. The inherent simplicity of shooting, processing our film and spending a productive day in the darkroom making our prints is gone forever. As we shoot more digitally we have a new set of benefits and problems. On the plus side, we don’t have to scan, clean our negatives and labor as hard over individual images as before. In fact we tend to manage whole groups of photographs now, rather then individual pictures. We have truly fantastic tools at our disposal to control output, from Photoshop CS2 with various sharpening plug ins, file-size increasing software and even framing plug ins that can fool the viewer into thinking we printed from a 4 x 5 Polaroid negative when we shot digitally.
On the other hand we have a whole host of new challenges. Perhaps the biggest is just keeping up. This takes time, devotion to the cause and serious capital too. In the past, many photographers have been techies but this takes techiedom to a whole new level. The other becomes a situation of what choice do you make about which way you’re going to manage your RAW files, who’s software are you going to use to work the files and where and how are you going to store all this stuff? As we are using better cameras with more megapixels our files are getting truly huge. Solve it here? I don’t think so. This clearly is an issue for another column and too big to solve in the concluding paragraph so stay tuned and, as always, hit me with feedback.
Neal Rantoul is a career artist and teacher. He has taught photography and still digital imaging for thirty years. He is currently head of the Photography Program at Northeastern University and taught for thirteen years at Harvard University as well as at the New England School of Photography.
Mr. Rantoul has work in numerous public and private collections. Among those are: The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The DeCordova Museum, the Fogg Art Museum, The High Museum in Atlanta, the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson and Princeton University. He is the recipient of many awards and grants including a Whiting Foundation Fellowship, a Lightwork (Syracuse, NY) residency, RSDF, FDP and IDF grants from Northeastern University, and was a finalist twice for the Massachusetts Cultural Council award.
A new book of his photographs will be available in June called “American Series”. His work can be seen at: www.NealRantoul.com
