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Wisconsin Digital: Information and Resources on All Things Digital

May 19, 2005
RAW Digital Camera Format for Archives?

The RAW format for digital cameras is, as it name implies, unprocessed data that comes directly from the camera's image processor. Unfortunately, each manufacturer maintains their own proprietary RAW format.

What Archives need is a more stable and long term format.

Why is the RAW format important? The RAW image is unprocessed image data and data about the camera's settings at the time the picture is taken. This extra metadata may include white balance, sharpness, color saturation and more. A detailed explanation is available in WikiPedia

One big problem for Libraries and Archives. How do we maintain and preserve images stored in proprietary RAW formats. Several initiatives are in the works to try and standardize the RAW format. One is the Digital Negative Specification (DNG) promoted by Adobe Systems and the other is OpenRAW an Open Source initiative.

Hopefully, companies, the user community, and our profession can come to terms on a standard that will help preserve our RAW images into the future.

Posted by Paul H at May 19, 2005 09:07 AM
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