Save as *.DNG

[3LP]

Hey there,

This might be a bit of a strange request, but let me explain :

I'm loving the way of grading with Adobe Camera Raw. Photoshop/lightroom/after effects, they all work the same way, and all work hand in hand by presets.

If I feel that I want to use that way of grading, I need to convert my EXRs to TIFFs through bridge/photoshop and then convert the TIFFs to DNGs through lightroom.
That way, I can start grade in lightroom, save the preset and import in after effects for further effects/color grading with passes/masks etc.

It's all ok, but it would be great to have the way of exporting straight from max to *.dng.
*.DNG seems to hold all the color space used by *.EXR and are even a little smaller filesize wise.
Please correct me if I'm way out of my thoughts in terms of color range.

Don't get me wrong, I know exr are kind of the best way to save raw images, and that it is most certainly possible to achieve the same results with all the standards plugins, but the Adobe Camera Raw tool is just so awesome, it's not for nothing that Adobe has implemented that filter in photoshop CC even for non raw files...

Cheers

Stan

[vlado]

Is there a description of this format somewhere?

Best regards,
Vlado

[3LP]

Here you go :

http://www.adobe.com/products/photos...splayTab2.html

Hope this helps

Stan

[vlado]

Thanks, will see what can be done about it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[3LP]

Hey Vlado, any news about this, just to know if it's a dead end or if we can still hope

Stan

[vlado]

I haven't really gotten to it yet. It's one of those cases where a voting system would have been very useful

Best regards,
Vlado

[snivlem]

What's exactly wrong with keeping them as tiffs? They work perfectly with lightroom? Even 32bit tiffs

[3LP]

Hey Vlado,

With Vray 3 coming out today, I'm not sure if you guys are a bit less stressed :-p but I just wanted to re-express my interest in saving out as dng files
I'm wishing everyday to be able to save out to dng files and I really think this could make a big change in workflows where adobe software are used.

Thanks a lot

Stan

[Sliver_Creations]

Yes I agree save as DNG would be very useful to me

[vlado]

We will look into it, yes. I suppose it might be easier to do it as a regular 3ds Max output file format plugin, as this is not really related to V-Ray specifically in any way.

Best regards,
Vlado

[3LP]

Oh yeah sure, that's also a good option!

Will it have all the options of the raw thought? Like saving out the color temp of the camera etc?

Thanks!

Stan

[3LP]

Hey Vlado,

Just wondering if you had any news about this one.
I'm still hoping to be able to go export to DNGs on day.

Thanks

Stan

[Neilg]

Whats the difference between this and a .cr2? i've never even seen a .dng file and shoot everything in raw.

[3LP]

Well, you are speaking about pure photography, and not 3D anymore
.cr2 is a raw file from Canon as .nef is the raw file from Nikon.

Those a proprietary raw file type.
Adobe created the Digital Negative (.dng) who is the open lossless raw image format
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Negative
A lot of photographers are converting all their proprietary raw files (.cr2, .nef, etc) to *.dng for storage. This ensure you not to be dependant of any proprietary file.

My wish was to be able to save out from max to .dng, why?
Everyday, we are doing more and more file that are photography images. And for the Adobe users, Adobe create the "Camera Raw". This is a great set of tools that is used by all the photographs around the world for photography.
This is integrated into lightroom/photoshop/after effects.
That way, we would be able to use the power of the digital photography tool with our 3D renders.

For the moment, the only easy way to use Camera Raw is through tiff format, but this is a real pain for storage.
Or export from tiff to dng through lightroom and delete the tiff files. But this is a long and fastidious pipeline.

For the same file :
1) dng weight 7.3Mo
2) tiff weight 79.9Mo

The tiff is 11 times heavier!
Plus, with the dng, you have a lot of embedded info that can be great to have. (color temp, distortion, etc.)

6 Months after I wrote this first post, Peter Guthrie explained that he uses lightroom for his final grade as well.
http://www.cgrecord.net/2013/11/soa-...ry-part-3.html search for lightroom.

It just makes sens to be able to save to a open digital negative file format and to use today's photographic tool when you make 3D photographic renders.

Thanks

Stan

[Macker]

Would love a .DNG output. Any news?