Archivability (the silver bullet?):...
Archivability (the silver bullet?): self-sufficiency, & archivability metrics
There's another goal for OpenRAW which is necessary to have photographs of archival quality:
Self-contained file formats, where file format is the RAW file + the documentation associated with it including any necessary proprietary information embedded in proprietary RAW processor(s).
In particular, some RAW files may encode a lookup table (et al.), where others may simply imply one (that would not be in the RAW file but _would_ be in the proprietary RAW processor). OpenRAW should insist that documentation be complete and self-sufficient for full archivability... and full RAW versioning as processing quality improves (e.g., the lookup table tweaks and evolves). I.e., all the lookup table information for full presentation
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Hmm, another idea.
What if we had a metric (a la the printer manufacturers, especially inkjet ones) to measure the half-life of a digital photograph from the various manufacturers and cameras? Currently, we would have the following:
cheap cameras using JPG only: archival quality (jpg), but poor image quality (no RAW).
prosumer cameras with JPG and RAW: good quality (RAW), but questionable RAW archivability
professional cameras essentially RAW-only: RAW has questionable archivability (dependent on proprietary software) and very expensive (worst of both worlds).
This is a bit backwards from printers. In printing, you pay more to get higher performance _and_ longer archivability. In cameras, you pay more to get higher performance _but_ riskier archivability. That's a little backwards, and the printer manufacturers have already figured that out. When will camera manufacturers align with professional user needs?
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Also, I like what someone suggested. The public owns photographs after so many years, so archivability is a public matter. The camera manufacturers are directly (albeit delayed by copyright's 72 years or somesuch) compromising the public welfare of photodocumentation by compromising the archivability of photographs with their proprietary RAW systems.
Thinking aloud...
Cheers,
= Joe =
Recently at a Digital Makeover Seminar through ASMP, the...
Recently at a Digital Makeover Seminar through ASMP, the safe practice of converting all RAW files to ProPhoto colorspace TIFFs for archive then trashing the RAW files was recommended. Is this really the best workflow for now?
Bruce, that sounds like a poor workflow! In order to...
Bruce, that sounds like a poor workflow!
In order to judge a workflow, it is necessary to know the requirements and the constraints. One of the requirements for most (all?) supporters of OpenRAW is to archive Raw images. That rules out ProPhoto TIFF alone.
My own workflow for archiving my Raw images is to archive DNG. (I also keep a copy of Dave Coffin's DCRaw source code, because that can process DNG files, among others). DNG is smaller than nearly all proprietary Raw files, and more likely to be understood in future. Some people may feel more comfortable archiving both their proprietary RAW images and the DNG versions, because that may offer even higher probability of later understandability. I don't do this, because total size is a constraint for me, and DNG is better.
But I separately archive my processed images, corresponding to only a fraction of the Raw images. I currently use PSD, but layered-TIFF may be better.
I have little problems with my raw files in my archive. I...
I have little problems with my raw files in my archive. I use Photo Mechanic to embed the IPTC data and iView to retrieve them. Photoshop will allso honor these itpc data and put them in resulting jpeg or tiff files.
I usi Mac OSX.
But I agree it is no standard, because spotlight will not find the iptc in these various RAW files, so chaos i remains.