Adobe Systems Inc. plans to introduce a new format for digital photos on Monday in an attempt to create an industry public standard to make the archiving and editing process compatible across all types of cameras and photo software. Most consumer digital cameras today capture images in the JPEG format, but a higher-quality raw photo format is gaining in popularity among higher-end and professional camera models.
A major frustration among photographers, however, has been how different digital camera makers use different, proprietary versions of the so-called raw format, industry analysts say. That incompatibility has forced users, especially in media and other companies, to maintain multiple software programs to handle the raw photos taken by different cameras. It has also raised concerns that archived raw images could become inaccessible with future software.
News source: MSNBC
A major frustration among photographers, however, has been how different digital camera makers use different, proprietary versions of the so-called raw format, industry analysts say. That incompatibility has forced users, especially in media and other companies, to maintain multiple software programs to handle the raw photos taken by different cameras. It has also raised concerns that archived raw images could become inaccessible with future software.
News source: MSNBC
What's new ?
Added lost extended registers unlocking code in RAM configuration detection routine for NVIDA GeForceFX and newer boards.
Hour is now displayed correctly on time markers in hardware monitoring log file viewer.
Fixed driver-level color correction for non-default rotation angles under the Detonator 42.10 and newer drivers.
Added ForceWare 66.31, 66.29, 66.32, 66.51, 66.70, 66.72 and 66.81 drivers support.
Updated databases for Detonator and ForceWare driver families. Due to more complex database build automation process used to generate database build scripts in this version, the databases contain many new system registry entries, missed in database build script in the previous versions.
Updated NVStrap antiprotection and ForceWareAntriprotector patch scripts for ForceWare 66.31, 66.29, 66.32, 66.51, 66.70, 66.72 and 66.81 drivers.
Revised antialiasing modes list for the ForceWare drivers.
Changed ForceWareFSAAModes format. Now system requirements are specified using GPU family ID rather than PCI DeviceID.
Updated Catalyst 4.9, 4.9 hotfix and 8.07 beta certified SoftR9x00 and ATIOverclockingAntiprotection patch scripts.
Added RV410 support. Now all R420 specific features including clock frequency control, temperature and fan speed monitoring / control are also available on RADEON X700 series. Thanks to Andrew Worobiew for testing RivaTuner with ATI RADEON X700XT.
Added VID monitoring for NV40 GPU based display adapters. Now GeForce 6800/GT/Ultra owners may also see either raw VID data or the corresponding voltages in hardware monitoring window.
Improved VID interpretator for "Core VID" hardware monitoring data sources:
Now besides NV30/NV35/NV38 specific "ISL6569 with hardwired VID0 / VID1" VID interpretation mode, RivaTuner's database also contains "1.1V + 0.1V / 0.3V loop", "1.1V + 0.3V / 0.2V loop" and "1.1V + 0.1V / 0.2V loop" interpretation modes allowing to translate raw VID data to the corresponding voltage on all NV40 based boards.
Added "Autoselect" button to the "VID interpretation" dialog. This button forces RivaTuner to compare voltage table stored in VGA BIOS with all VID interpretators available in the database and automatically select matched one.
Added interpretation preview window to the "VID interpretation" dialog. Now RivaTuner displays all available VID values and the corresponding voltages for selected intepretator.
Greatly improved built-in patch script engine:
Added BIOSChecksumGenerator RTS post-installation plug-in module, allowing you to restore BIOS checksum after patching a file with RivaTuner's patch script engine.
Added BIOSChecksumGenerator stub patch script, allowing you to restore VGA BIOS checksum in image file without making any additional changes in it.
Improved patch script format. Now the DstFile and BakFile fields can contain %filename% and %ext% macro strings. This feature is useful when source file name contains wildcards and is unknown a priori.
Added NV40BIOSUnitsMaskEliminator patch script, allowing you to remove software pixel / vertex units mask from VGA BIOS image file.
New patch script formats support. Now besides previously available native patch scripts, applying changes to a file, RivaTuner's patch script engine also supports so called runtime scripts, which can be applied directly to a driver loaded in memory. Runtime patch scripts are useful for patching runtime decoded drivers, protected against native patch scripts. Furthermore besides native-only and runtime-only patch scripts, patch script engine also supports so called universal patch scripts, which can be installed in both modes.
Added ATIOverclockingAntiprotectionRuntime patch script, based upon newly introduced runtime patching technology. This script is an example of universal patch script, which can be applied to both driver miniport binary file in the distributive and directly to the miniport driver, loaded in memory.
Improved NVIDIA VGA BIOS formats support:
Now BIT structure based VGA BIOS images with no BMP structure are fully supported by RivaTuner. This allows displaying "NVIDIA VGA BIOS information" diagnostic report category on GeForce 6600 display adapters family, which have no BMP structure in BIOS.
Added BIT tokens list interpretator. Now locations of tokens defining offsets to performance and voltage tables are calculated by translating and scanning whole BIT tokens list and no longer referenced using fixed offset from the beginning of BIT header.
Improved low-level graphics subsystem diagnostic report module:
Now NVIDIA VGA BIOS version is read from the BIT rather than from the BMP when both structures are available in VGA BIOS.
Added dozen of new NVIDA / Intel / SiS / AMD northbridges to RivaTuner's hardware database.
"GPU units mask" line in "NVIDIA VGA BIOS information" diagnostic report category has been renamed to "SW units mask". Software units mask representation has been also changed to make it more plain for beginners. Now RivaTuner displays "none" instead of "16x1,6vp" when there are no software masked units detected in VGA BIOS, and shows which pixel / vertex units exactly are disabled if software units mask exists in VGA BIOS.
Added "HW units mask" line to "NVIDIA specific display adapter information" diagnostic report category. This line displays "none" if the GPU doesn't have hardware masked pixel / vertex units, otherwise it shows which pixel / vertex units exactly are masked with hardware straps.
New NVStrap v1.6 driver brings you more nice exclusive features:
Now the NVStrap driver configuration tab contains "Allow enabling masked units" option, allowing the driver to force the graphics processor to activate all pixel / vertex units, even if they are hardware strapped as damaged. Please be extremely careful and use this option at your own risk. Enabling hardware masked units, which have not passed hardware quality testing, may cause unpredictable results and even permanently damage your graphics hardware.
Improved "Custom graphics processor configuration" dialog layout. Now you may also see enabled/disabled state of each pixel/vertex unit in separate column. New "HW masked" column shows you which pixel / vertex units are hardware strapped as defected and protected from enabling by default by hardware mask to prevent system instability.
Added NVStrap driver version tracking wizard. This module checks version of the currently installed NVStrap driver each time you open NVStrap configuration tab and offers you to replace outdated version with new one if you have not reinstalled the driver manually after upgrading RivaTuner version.
New NVInfo v1.4 bundled DOS utility. Now NVInfo provides RivaTuner-styled command line interface for R/W access to NVIDIA graphics processor's registers. Take a note, that NVInfo correctly supports queued R/W commands like RivaTuner's command line interface.
Due to users' requests, unofficial support for integrated NVIDIA graphics processors is returned back.
Due to numerous requests from third party developers, some components of RivaTuner's SDK are no longer available via personal email request only and will be included in distributive since this version. Now RivaTuner's publicly available SDK includes RTHMSharedMemory VC++ sample, allowing third party tools to access RivaTuner's hardware monitoring statistics in realtime.
Improved compatibility with some slow flashrom chips used on NVIDIA display adapters.
New Easter eggs. Added built-in device driver dump utility, allowing you to dump loaded driver memory and save it to the file for subsequent analysis. This utility is useful for analyzing runtime decrypted drivers as well as for creating runtime patch scripts and tracking differences caused by other tool patching driver in runtime.
Improved installer. Now RivaTunerEx.sys driver is automatically unloaded from memory during installation to ensure proper driver operation.
Added about 10 new overclocking and NV40 softmodding related questions and answers to FAQ.
Minor UI changes and improvements.
RIVATUNER IS SUPPLIED "AS IS". THE AUTHOR ASSUMES NO LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES, DIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL, WHICH MAY RESULT FROM THE USE OF RIVATUNER This program should be used at your own risk. We are not responsible for anything that happens to you or your computer after using this utility.
However, I always wondered why they didn't just add in PNG support into cameras?
I don't know a huge ammount about RAW etc (but I am planning on getting into photography next year) but surely PNG is just the same thing basically? (well better maybe, as it's lossless compression?)
And, if I remember correctly, PNG is an open format too, so you wouldn't end up having something like the whole compuserve/gif thing happening all over again.
Again, the best way to think of it is, if you compare it to print photography, RAW is the negative, while the image file is the print.
If apple really had software and hardware compatibillity accross multiple vendors in mind, they would work on contributing to a decent open and patent-free format, possibly suggesting optimizations to PNG which yeild better compression ratios for raw images.
As the old saying goes: “the good thing about standards is
there are so many to choose from”
Did you by any chance ment a high quality image WITH a smaller size than a jpg?.. RAW or TIFF which most cameras have the option to save as, are way better than the jpg image quality... the only problem they have is that you could probably take more photos in the jpg format than the RAW or TIFF and wouldn't need the software to convert the RAW file in order for you to see it in any computer or system that displays images.
That is a long way of saying that this move by Adobe is a great idea.
This is because you get more fine control and more powerful algothrythyms for th econversion. When you take a picture with a normal digicam, the camar's on board software converts the RAW sensor data, based on preset curves, generates an iamge (mostly jg or tiff), and save the image.
The high end Cameras, have an option that let's you save the RAW sensor data. You can then plug that data into a RAW editing program like Adobe Camera RAW or Capture One and "develop the negative." During this time, you can make custom exposure, contrast, curves, and many other settings before the conversion. Doing it this way, gives you more presicion over the process and "destroys" less of the colour and tonal range, than if the camera generated the image file and you later applied curve and white balance.
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.