NEFs "has unknown format"

Thanks @kmilos :slight_smile:

Problem solved!

I converted the old NEFs to PGN 8 bits in rawTherapee and then ran the new PNGs through my normal darktable workflow…

Thanks to everyone, for all the good advice…

Have a good weekend :slight_smile:

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ViewNX definately changes NEF files, but I don’t think the resulting files are corrupted. ViewNX reads them just fine (as do lots of other software packages). I think that from Nikon’s point of view the ‘MM’ variant NEF files are valid NEF files. Its just that most software that reads NEF files is based on reverse engineering camera files because Nikon have not released the NEF file specification.

You can also recover the files by passing them through Adobe DNG convertor (not free software though).

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Thanks @paulmiller for the DNG tip, but as you mentioned it strands me with NON open raw specifications, just like Nikon’s NEF…

There is openRAw, but it seems like it has been abandoned years ago?

Great project though :slight_smile:

The DNG format is completely public, so there are no ‘openness’ or vendor lock-in issues associated with it. Only the DNG Converter is proprietary.

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Last time I looked into the DNG format and I admit it was years ago, it didn’t seem like it was very popular in Linux communities…,

Maybe for the reason’s mentioned by @kmilos

On the other hand the completely open alternative mentioned earlier OpenRaw, seemed abandoned…

In terms of “proprietariness”, DNG is more open-source-friendly than the individual camera manafacturers’ raw formats. If more cameras encoded their raws as DNG, I think it would be quite popular… :smiley:

All the raw converter software that uses the FOSS libraw library to open raws gets fundamental DNG support without even noticing it. My hack software does, but where I’d draw the line is in using all that DNG-included lookup table stuff to do default processing. Not a FOSS thing per-se, just an old fool being curmudgeonly…

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May I ask which batch raw2dng converter for Linux you use ?

The Adobe DNG Converter. I don’t use it in my workflow; I just abscond with profiles… :smiley:

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Thanks @ggbutcher

Adobe DNG converter is not, as far as I can see, available for Linux though…

Run it with wine

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Thanks @wpferguson

But after converting NEFs to DNG, do you risk deleting the original RAW file, or save both and end up dubbleing up on the HD space?

The safest thing to do would be to keep both initially. Once you have verified that you can use the DNGs as you wish, then you can delete the NEFs if you want. But if you are not comfortable, invest in the disk space to keep both. Disk space is cheap. Sleep is precious.

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Most raw files have a “makernote” section, which can have any kind of information the equipment manufacturer wants to put there. As they rarely (if ever) give information about what exactly is stored in the makenote (let alone how it is stored), that information can only be retrieved after reverse engineering the data, and most of the time, this is only partially successfull. But there’s progress over time.

That means that if you convert your raw files to DNG and then delete the originals, you may not be able to get the best out of your raws a few years from now.
Unless you store the raws in the DNG (which is possible), but then I suspect you lose most of the space gain of keeping only one format…

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Btw, I have patched Phil Harvey’s tool to include the D3100 support as well, but unfortunately it fails with “Error: Not a characteristic corrupted NEF”, which suggests the corruption by Nikon Transfer 2 is different to what the tool was designed for (Nikon Transfer 1 related) :frowning:

It really does look like Nikon Transfer 2 dropped the ContrastCurve (and a bunch of other tags). Now, why that tag is absolutely required by rawspeed is another topic…

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