scanner NEF and DNG
There's no doubt that Nikon scanner NEFs differ form their camera counterparts, but that's a matter to write a new code to support this other format. It would be nice to be able to scan raw, and in a future time use C1 pro to process. After all, iView MediaPro 3.1.2 CAN, at least, open/process/catalog these Nikon scanner NEFs ! and ACR 4.1 can also open these DNG scans created by VueScan Pro.
Scanning RAW has become a reality. Unfortunately, the only missing thing is that there are no serious tools out there (such as C1 Pro) that can take advantage of RAW scans. The majority of the world's archives are still on film and it's preferable to give the world the tools to scan these in raw and be able to do something useful out of this raw. It would be nice if the C1 Pro team can take a look at it. If other software of lesser caliber can open and process raw, I don't see a reason why Phase One can't do it.
I scaned a 35mm IT8 target slide in NEF (with NikonScan) and a DNG (with VueScan Pro) raw using my Nikon Coolscan V film scanner and uploaded the raw scans in my FTP server should a C1 developer consider implementing scanner raw in C1 Pro:
scanner nef, 14-bit, 1000spi, scannerRGB (opens in iView MediaPro 3, Capture NX, NiconScan):
scanner dng, 1000spi, deviceRGB (opens in ACR4.1):
Cheers,
Dimitri Papadopoulos
Montreal, Canada
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I just discovered that the undocumented and mysterious scanner NEF issue has just been answered not long ago by a Nikon official. Michael Rubin from Nikon said basically that Scanner NEF from NikonScan are not RAW files. Scanner NEF is essentially a container which contains a TIFF bitmap and additional multiple instruction sets for certain Nikon Software to use. Interesting... link here:
Having said this, then the only software capable of scanning raw data is the latest version VueScan Professional in DNG. My understanding is also that C1 PRO v4 will have support for DNG. But I'm not too worried, since if ACR4.1 can open such scan, I don't see why C1 v.4 won't.
I'll appreciate if a C1 developer can tell us if the above DNG raw scan (link provided above) can be opened in the alpha or beta version of C1 v4.
Thanks.0 -
Scratch all my above posts. After some research I discovered that Camera Raw software are not appropriate for opening Scanner Raw images, as they are 2 different beasts.
Camera Raw software are designed to INTERPOLATE the colors of 12-bit images total coming out of a camera sensor to 24 or 48 bits. The logic being each pixel on the camera's sensor is either Red OR Green OR Blue. In other words, each pixel doesn't contain ALL 3 RGB values. The role of C1 is then to interpolate, from the surrounding pixels what the 2 "missing" colors per pixel should be.
In the case of scanner raw, every pixel contains ALL 3 RGB colors. Furthermore, all the data of the sensor is well contained in a regular 36, 42 or 48-bit scan; and a High-Bit unprocessed TIFF scan, IS a RAW, which can be opened in any image editor.
All this according to some research I did. I may be wrong.0 -
@Dimitro1 thanks for the infos.
So far to my understanding.
VueScan’s DNG RAW is a 16bit TIFF in a DNG container and meant to be used to change also ICE settings after without the need to rescan. This can be imported into Capture One.
Nikon’s NEF by NikonScan is also a 16bit TIFF, but in a NEF container made for Nikon software – which can’t be used in Capture One.
I think my workflow will be to make scans in VueScan in 16bit TIFF – maybe convert them into a DNG (Lossy Compression) to reduce the size.
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Hi EtMRS, thanks for the reply. I have also discovered this workaround. Even my plan was to get rid of any Adobe;-) This way I can compress a 117MB NEF to 80MB DNG.
BTW I have discovered VueScan is way faster, with even better results than with NikonScan (which still runs on my vintage Mac Quicksilver).
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