HD For Indies

Here is the Adobe link announcing the format launch.
Here is a nice MacWorld summary & analysis article about the new format and what it means.

Mike's Commentary & Analysis:

Still image manipulation is always running ahead of video manipulation for a variety of reasons, market share and ease of hardware access are two entertwined reasons (still image manipulation hardware is cheaper than video manipulation hardware).

Adobe has released a new file format (and Photoshop plug-in to read/write it) that is non-proprietary, inviting others to use it both to read and write the file format. It's called DNG, for Digital NeGative. If you are at all familiar with the RAW camera file format, DNG is a standard for cameras to write a standardized RAW format - most RAW file formats have to support each camera type, one at a time. DNG is a format for all vendors to subscribe to, and all of the cameras already supported by the Photoshop Raw Camera Plug-In can now be converted to DNG.

So why care about it over on the video side? Because DNG is all about snagging the raw output of the CCDs and letting the user manipulate it as they please, to control certain assumptions about white point, gamma, sharpening, and other image factors.

My 3D buddies have been using RAW format to generate HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imagery) to to environmental lighting and reflections in their 3D applications with stunning results for a few years now. HDRI imaging is the new standard on how to light your scenes for photorealistic integrated 3D/live composites.

I think, in time, folks are going to want to be able to capture the raw CCD output from their video cameras. Certainly the highest end professionals will want to be able to, and visual effects artists will want to be able to. I think it'll be years before the possibility, and might involve producing cameras with a special "bypass" mode that allows for capture directly from the CCD array straight to a hard drive. But wait a minute, isn't that what the Dalsa Origin is already doing, just not to this particular format?

I think it'll be very interesting to see where all this goes.

In the meantime, I'd highly advocate that Adobe come out with an After Effects (and Premiere Pro) compatible File Format Plug-In so that those applications can read in DNG formats as well. Still image photographers aren't the only ones that will want to play with this.

I've already emailed with 3 or 4 stop motion artists who are shooting digital still photography for their high definition (be it HDTV or theatrical destination) work, and I've advocated using Photoshop, the RAW file format, and annoyingly laborioius scripting via the Actions functionality to batch process to color correct shot by shot.

Let these folks just bring in a sequence into After Effects and tweak it there.

It would be WONDERFULLY powerful.

And that's what Adobe's all about, right?

-mike