OpenRaw.org has posted an online survey form asking for your input. If you shoot digital, and use your camera manufacturers RAW format, this might be worth your time. It took me about 12 minutes to complete. The basic premise of OpenRaw.org, from their web site is:
The OpenRAW Solution:
We want camera manufacturers to publicly document their RAW image formats — past, present, and future. The goal of OpenRAW is to encourage image preservation and give creative choice of how images are processed to the creators of the images. To this end, we advocate open documentation of information about the how the raw data is stored and the camera settings selected by the photographer.
In spending the last year getting to know my first digital camera, the D2x, I spent a huge amount of time testing various RAW converters, including the head to head between Nikon Capture (NC) – which cost me an extra $100.00, and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) – which required I upgrade to PSCS2.
To summarize my own feelings and survey input, I was of the feeling that the NC Conversion provided a better result due to manufacturer proprietary, but I was so disgusted by the poor performance in speed and workflow integration. Using ACR and Bridge with PSCS2 for corrections seemed to be a much more natural and integrated system. With work, practice, and a few well placed helpers, I found I could, for the most part, get equal results from ACR. This now makes me concerned that in the future, Nikon could play “mine, mine. Gimmee, Gimmee.” Hence the benefit of the OpenRaw, whereby all camera companies would all adopt one standard RAW format. The other side of the fence; can each create the best file possible using a standard source, or will they stop trying to out-perform the RAW output quality of the competition?
I have no answers as to what the future will hold for RAW format, OpenRaw, and my own Nikon NC vs ACR workflow routines. I do know that the only answers I had, I passed along in the survey.
