• Welcome to the Lightroom Queen Forums! We're a friendly bunch, so please feel free to register and join in the conversation. If you're not familiar with forums, you'll find step by step instructions on how to post your first thread under Help at the bottom of the page. You're also welcome to download our free Lightroom Quick Start eBooks and explore our other FAQ resources.
  • Dark mode now has a single preference for the whole site! It's a simple toggle switch in the bottom right-hand corner of any page. As it uses a cookie to store your preference, you may need to dismiss the cookie banner before you can see it. Any problems, please let us know!

Does Nikon provide all info?

Status
Not open for further replies.

wblink

Active Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2008
Messages
429
Location
Gendt, Netherlands
Lightroom Experience
Beginner
Lightroom Version
Hi,

Doe Nikon provide all info about their NEF-file-construction, or better all relevant info to Adobe to use in their prgrms?

Ad Canon?
 
Willem, The word "proprietary" carries with is certain connotations. Both Nikon - NEF and Canon - CR2 are proprietary file formats based upon the TIFF/EP6 file specification. Because they are based upon TIFF/EP6, Adobe and others are able to deconstruct the data contained in the file.
This includes the Header Block as well as the data block. Part of the EXIF header block is a field called "Manufacturers" notes. This is a structured field containing various parameters that the Manufacturer references in their tweaking of the data as well as other parameters recorded by the camera that are not in the standard part of the EXIF Header. Folks that develop EXIF parsers like PhotoMe and Exiftool can and do parse these fields, and so I suppose can Adobe.

What Adobe does not do is list these parsed fields in the Metadata pane since they would exist for some manufacturers and not others. Also, different manufacturers might call the same data by different names And a field like "Subject distance might be recorded as a numeric value in meters or a numeric value meaning "macro","Standard", or "telephoto". And finally you come to the field containing proprietary technology like Nikon's ADR. Now Canon and most major manufacturers have a similar technology that records metadata about varying the sensitivity of individual photosites. And of course, they all record this information differently using different numeric ranges meaning different proprietary parameteras to be applied to individual photosites. And this is the part that Nikon is not about to share with competition or a benevolent company like Adobe
 
Last edited:
The requirement to adhere to Nikon's processing of the raw file.

Adobe use a mini SDK which allows them to decode the WB.
 
It goes back some time, to CS2 I think. From what I recall, Adobe could have access to the full SDK on condition they output raw data using Nikon DLLs and other code. That obviously runs contrary to Adobe Camera Raw's generic approach. Instead according to Thomas Knoll Adobe had got access via "a new 'mini-SDK', which has the sole function of reading the white balance parameters from a NEF file (while still allowing the host application to do its own raw conversion)."

John
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top