Applying this same idea of standards to digital photography, Adobe Systems has proposed a standard RAW file format that would greatly benefit digital photographers, camera manufacturers and the entire photographic industry as a whole. Adopting a standard would make working with RAW files easier and faster for everyone and ensure that those images will be accessible long into the future.

The format, called the Digital Negative (DNG), was designed to be non-proprietary and publicly documented so that it can be used by a wide range of camera and software makers, as well as digital photographers. Like JPEG or TIFF files, the DNG would be a standard that’s recognized by most applications and gives photographers the greatest possible flexibility in processing their images.

The current situation is that each camera company has its own proprietary RAW file format, which complicates the workflow for photographers by requiring them to use special software to process these files and convert them into workable formats such as TIFF.

Another significant problem with having a multitude of file formats is that they aren’t guaranteed to be accessible in the future. In the case of a camera manufacturer going out of business or developing a new file format and scrapping an older version, there’s a very real possibility that photographers may not be able to access their images in 50 or even five years from now. Adobe’s proposed standard would protect the long-term viability of digital images by creating a publicly documented format that’s independent of all camera and software manufacturers and, thus, would continue to exist beyond the rise and fall of different companies or their products.

The format is currently supported by Adobe in the new version of the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in. Because the format is open and its details are documented publicly, DNG already is available for use by other companies. It doesn’t necessarily have to replace camera manufacturers’ individual formats. DNG just provides the industry with a common alternative, like a common language, so that everyone can clearly communicate.

If the standard catches on, we expect so see a DNG option on digital camera menus in the not-too-distant future. The advantages of a standard RAW format are clear; we at PCPhoto hope that it’s only a matter of time before DNG becomes the shared currency of digital photographers all over the world.

Contact: Adobe Systems, (800) 833-6687, www.adobe.com/products/dng/main.html.