DCR files and the new Adobe DNG format

[AndrewRodney]

-->I see very little difference with ACR 2.2 and DNG ACR 2.3

I'd expect that. The converter is a safety net to take a proprietary RAW file and make it into a "universal" RAW format. If ACR supports the original RAW data, you'll probably be hard pressed to see a difference all things being equal. The idea here is to have a standard RAW format that users will be able to handle now and in the future and to put out a new standard RAW open standard we'd hope Kodak and all the others would adopt in the future making the converter an unnecessary accessory.

[Chuck_Kuhlman]

Considering that 'raw' image formats are by their very nature tied to the hardware that produced them, both DNG and PASS are Yet Another Pair Of Image File Formats. Nothing really 'raw' about them. Not one bit (excuse the pun).

Having said that, PASS has the potential to be an excellent archiving and storage system. While DNG is Just Another Image File Format, PASS is a 'system' designed for data integrity, rapid retrieval, and print/edit flexibility. The image format in PASS is closely, but not irretrieveably related to current Kodak DCS formats, which in turn are tied to the electronics capablities of Kodak sensors.

If you take a close look, you will see Kodak sensors popping up in Olympus 4/3 cameras. Oly is a PASS member.

[GrahamWelland]

PASS may well be the way forward but I'll bet that Adobe wins this particular arguement by sheer market penetration and dominance. I think we'll be looking at defacto vs. dejeure standards - where's the ubiquitous PASS implementation today? Is anyone going to go up against Adobe and push this through? I doubt it somehow.

I'm in favour of anything that standardizes the plethora of raw file formats and helps me deploy ONE asset manager to handle files from my varied collection of camera systems and file formats. Personally, I can live with the proprietary raw formats so long as there's one standard that tool vendors will support for 'digital negatives' in my image library. (TIFF & JPEG don't cut it).

I'm sure this one will rage on for a while but I just have to congratulate Adobe for at least doing something constructive in this area.