On 14 Nov 2004 at 18:00, John Francis wrote: > Unlike most (or at least most who express an opinion) on this list, > I think Pentax did the right thing with their PEF fle format. > When the 14-bit sensors come out, Pentax won't have to change their > format. They can also use standard software libraries to read and > write their image files - a PEF file is actually just a very thinly > disguised TIFF file. That's going to make it really easy for any > future versions of Photo Laboratory and suchlike to handle both the > existing 12-bit and any future 14-bit (or even 16-bit) files.
Unfortunately I've come to view Pentax PhotoLab is a waste of time, like many others it seems. So I really don't care what the internal file format is, I just care that it can be decoded using PS CS RAW, which it seems even the unpadded files of various bit depths from other manufacturers can. I'm more concerned about how many shots I can fit on my CF cards and how much space my archives take up on my HDD array, how many RAW images fit on a DVD and how long it takes to transfer x number of images from my CF cards. > Fortunately, the very fact that PEF is already basically a TIFF > file means that Pentax are probably the most likely manufacturer > to switch to using DNG as their internal file format; they're > already 95% (or more) of the way there (DNG is also based on TIFF). > > Incidentally, this "well though out" DNG format also includes the > extra four bits of padding per pixel that you berate Pentax for > using. The reduction in file size output from the DNG converter > comes from the (optional) compression - turn compression off, and > DNG files approach PEF files in size. Again I don't care how it's dealt with, the padding could be added at any time in the data stream, what is important is the file size to the user. If DNG can fix this then it's a good thing IMHO. Rob Studdert HURSTVILLE AUSTRALIA Tel +61-2-9554-4110 UTC(GMT) +10 Hours [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~distudio/publications/ Pentax user since 1986, PDMLer since 1998
