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Best non-RAW format for C1 editing?

PhaseZero
As mentioned in some other posting C1 is concentrating on full (and high performance) support for new camera RAW/DNG formats. P1 does not like to implement fast and ugly support in C1. That is ok!

But I really like to use C1 and like to edit some non supported image files already now. Hopefully only for a intermediate time. So I plan to convert some of my 12-bit DNGs with external tools (from camera maker or ...?) to the best possible image format. But I have no experience, which format is the best for C1 and does not limit its possibilities. Is it TIF-24, TIFF-32, PNG-24 from my DAM (IMatch) fine or do I need something else? JPG is certainly not good due to lossless compression and limited bit depth. Is TIF-24 a waste of storage and load time for just 12 bit RAW files? Thanks!
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Comments

5 comments

Date Votes
  • Paul Steunebrink
    I assume you mean 8-bits per R-G-B channel when you refer to Tiff-24. This is best option in my opinion balancing between file size and image quality. Compression of this format is effective size-wise and lossless regarding quality.
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  • PhaseZero
    Thank you Paul, I studied IT, but this did not help and I am confused about some SW options. My DAM does offer RAW export to TIFF-8, TIFF-24, TIFF-32, PNG-8 and PNG-24 bit. For TIF either CYMK or RGB, either LZW, RLE or no compression is possible. My DNG have 12 bit. I assume that something with the definitions of TIFF-xx is unclear. Irfanview shows for example the following information about some export results from my DAM software:

    • Original DNG from camera: 12 bit per pixel (10,512 kByte without preview)

    • PNG-8: 8 bit per pixel (5,138 kByte)

    • PNG-24 bit: 24 bit per pixel (8,351 kByte)

    • TIFF-8 RGB: 8 bit per pixel (5,991 kByte)

    • TIFF-24 bit RGB: 24 bit per pixel (26,800 kByte)

    • TIFF-24 bit CYMK: 32 bit per pixel (33,861 kByte)

    • TIFF-32 bit RGB: 32 bit per pixel (30,950 kByte)

    • TIFF-32 bit CYMK: 40 bit per pixel (39,914 kByte)

    TIFF exports are all LZW compressed. I assume for CYMK, that instead of 24 and 32 bit it should be 32 = 4x8 bit and 40 = 4x10 bit (Is this 40 bit really true?). Oops, I just found out, that C1 can only import TIFF-24 bit RGB and nothing else from above list. The export however is possible from C1 with TIFF-24 bit = 3x8 and TIFF-48 bit = 3x16.

    A lot of words, but just one possible option:

    • Use TIFF-24 bit RGB for non-raw import in C1.

    With DNGs from my camera I loose 4 bit per color with this workaround, which is not negligible.
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  • Paul Steunebrink
    [quote="PhaseZero" wrote:
    ...
    A lot of words, but just one possible option:

    • Use TIFF-24 bit RGB for non-raw import in C1.

    With DNGs from my camera I loose 4 bit per color with this workaround, which is not negligible.

    Note that raw file formats, whether DNG, CR2, NEF or whatever, do not have color channels like RGB or CMYK. It is only one (1) channel, luminance. The processing of a raw file to a RGB or CMYK file is a complex computation that is the main reason of existence of raw software. As a result, the 12 bit per pixel of a raw image is not one-to-one comparable with the number of pixels of one channel of a RGB or CMYK image.

    An 8-bit per channel color image possesses a wealth of information from a 12-bit raw file when properly adjusted for raw processing. A 16-bit per channel color image is relevant for very critical work and/or heavy post-processing after raw conversion.
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  • PhaseZero
    Thank you Paul! Regards from Joseph
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  • Paul Steunebrink
    [quote="PhaseZero" wrote:
    Thank you Paul! Regards from Joseph

    You're welcome Joseph. Happy shooting!
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