# Does Nikon provide all info?



## wblink (Mar 14, 2012)

Hi,

Doe Nikon provide all info about their NEF-file-construction, or better all relevant info to Adobe to use in their prgrms?

Ad Canon?


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## clee01l (Mar 14, 2012)

Willem,  The word "proprietary" carries with is certain connotations. Both Nikon - NEF and Canon - CR2 are proprietary file formats based upon the TIFF/EP6 file specification.  Because they are based upon TIFF/EP6, Adobe and others are able to deconstruct the data contained in the file. 
This includes the Header Block as well as the data block.  Part of the EXIF header block is a field called "Manufacturers" notes.  This is a structured field containing  various parameters that the Manufacturer references in their tweaking of the data as well as other parameters recorded by the camera that are not in the standard part of the EXIF Header. Folks that develop EXIF parsers like PhotoMe and Exiftool  can and do parse these fields, and so I suppose can Adobe. 

What Adobe does not do is list these parsed fields in the Metadata pane since they would exist for some manufacturers and not others.  Also, different manufacturers might call the same data by different names  And a field like "Subject distance might be recorded as a numeric value in meters or a numeric value meaning "macro","Standard", or "telephoto".  And finally you come to the field  containing proprietary technology like Nikon's ADR. Now Canon and most major manufacturers have a similar technology that records metadata about varying the sensitivity of individual  photosites.  And of course, they all record this information differently using different numeric ranges meaning different proprietary parameteras to be applied to individual photosites.  And this is the part that Nikon is not about to share with competition or a benevolent company like Adobe


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## wblink (Mar 14, 2012)

Thank you for the info Cletus.


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## sizzlingbadger (Mar 14, 2012)

Also...  Nikon does provide an SDK to access the data in NEF files but Adobe have decided against using it.


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## wblink (Mar 15, 2012)

sizzlingbadger said:


> Also...  Nikon does provide an SDK to access the data in NEF files but Adobe have decided against using it.



Yes I know about the SDK's. What is wrong with them in Adobe's view?


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## johnbeardy (Mar 15, 2012)

The requirement to adhere to Nikon's processing of the raw file.

Adobe use a mini SDK which allows them to decode the WB.


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## wblink (Mar 16, 2012)

johnbeardy said:


> The requirement to adhere to Nikon's processing of the raw file.
> 
> Adobe use a mini SDK which allows them to decode the WB.



Could you be a bit more specific in this?


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## johnbeardy (Mar 16, 2012)

It goes back some time, to CS2 I think. From what I recall, Adobe could have access to the full SDK on condition they output raw data using Nikon DLLs and other code. That obviously runs contrary to Adobe Camera Raw's generic approach. Instead according to Thomas Knoll Adobe had got access via "a new 'mini-SDK', which has the sole function of reading the  white balance parameters from a NEF file (while still allowing the host  application to do its own raw conversion)." 

John


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