DNG Is Now an International ISO Standard – What It Means for Filmmakers and RAW Workflows

Industry News

by Johnnie BehiriMarch 31^st, 2026

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After more than two decades of development, advocacy, and gradual industry adoption, Adobe’s Digital Negative format (DNG) has been ratified as an official ISO standard: ISO 12234-4:2026. The implications extend well beyond still photography, touching the RAW video workflows that cinematographers and DITs rely on every day.

The publication of ISO 12234-4 represents a formal milestone that many in the imaging industry had been pushing toward since DNG first appeared in September 2004. The standard’s full designation is “Digital Imaging — Image storage — Part 4: Digital negative format,” and it sits under ISO Technical Committee 42 (Photography), placing DNG alongside other foundational imaging standards such as TIFF and PDF. While the standard itself is highly technical and covers the complete specification of the DNG file format as published by Adobe Systems, the broader significance is straightforward: DNG is no longer simply an Adobe format with an open license. It is now a globally recognised international standard.

A question asked in 2004

The path to this milestone began in March 2004, when Australian photographer Robert Edwards posed a question on Rob Galbraith’s photography forum, one of the most important professional communities of that era: “Could Adobe make a RAW format?” His vision was specific, calling for a format that preserved edits, was fully documented, and could serve as a long-term archival standard. Within hours, Thomas Knoll, the engineer who invented Adobe Photoshop, replied with a characteristically brief confirmation: “Yes, it is feasible.” Knoll was, as it later emerged, already working on what would become DNG.

Adobe announced the Digital Negative format in September 2004. Built on the foundation of TIFF-EP (ISO 12234-2), DNG was positioned from the outset as an open and fully documented alternative to the growing proliferation of proprietary RAW formats. The stated goal was not to replace manufacturer RAW formats by force, but to create something that could outlast individual cameras, companies, and software ecosystems. Adoption came gradually. Manufacturers including Leica, Pentax, Ricoh, Sigma, and DJI added DNG as a native capture format. The arrival of DNG support in Apple and Google’s smartphone platforms broadened its reach to hundreds of millions of devices, decisively moving the format beyond its professional-photography origins.

Why this matters beyond still photography

For the filmmaking community, DNG has long been a familiar presence under a related name. CinemaDNG, Adobe’s extension of the format for RAW video recording, was adopted by cameras including the Blackmagic Cinema Camera (in the past), and the SIGMA fp, and remains in active use today. The relationship between CinemaDNG and the broader RAW codec landscape has been a recurring subject for filmmakers weighing archival quality against practical storage and workflow considerations. ISO standardisation of the underlying DNG specification strengthens the long-term case for any workflow built on the format, including motion applications.

The archival argument is the most immediate. RAW camera formats for photos are by nature tied to the manufacturer ecosystem that produces them. Sony’s ARW, Nikon’s NEF, Canon’s CR2, and FUJIFILM’s RAF are all proprietary specifications. Software support for these formats depends on companies maintaining their development tools, granting access to third-party developers, or publishing enough technical detail for independent support to emerge. That support can lag significantly; at the time of publication, RAW files from some recently released cameras are still not fully supported outside the manufacturer’s own software. DNG, as an open and fully documented format, does not carry that dependency. A file written to the DNG specification today should be readable by any conformant software in the future, without negotiation with a manufacturer.

The resistance argument is no longer valid

One of the most persistent objections to broader DNG adoption from camera manufacturers has been the perception that the format is an Adobe-owned proprietary asset. That argument was always on shaky ground, since DNG has been openly licensed and fully documented since its introduction, and Adobe has a precedent of developing formats that became industry standards, with TIFF being the clearest example. ISO standardisation removes even the rhetorical basis for that objection. Edwards, who attended ISO standardisation meetings on behalf of the Australian Institute of Professional Photography from 2013 onward and has advocated for this outcome for years, summarised the new situation directly: “Camera manufacturers no longer have a valid reason to avoid supporting DNG.”

Whether major holdouts will move is a different question. Canon and Nikon have built extensive software ecosystems around their proprietary formats, and there is no regulatory mechanism that compels manufacturer support for an ISO standard. The more immediate effect may be felt in third-party software development, archival storage systems, and professional asset management workflows, where the ISO designation provides procurement teams and institutional users with a formal standard to reference when specifying interoperable RAW formats.

The standardisation process

For those interested in the formal timeline, the ISO 12234-4 project was approved in February 2023, with a committee draft registered in June 2024. The standard reached publication stage in March 2026, completing a process that formally reconciled the major implementations and adoptions of Adobe DNG into a single specification. The standard covers the complete DNG image file format and is designed to enable use across a wide range of hardware and software for generating, processing, managing, transcoding, and archiving RAW photographs. Tools such as the RAW Convertor application (or OCTOPUS RAW Player), which bridges proprietary RAW video formats like ProRes RAW into CinemaDNG for DaVinci Resolve workflows, are part of the broader ecosystem that benefits from DNG’s documented and now standardised foundation.

Acknowledgements: ISO.org, Robert Edwards Photographer, PetaPixel, Adobe Help Centre.

DNG achieving ISO status is a genuinely meaningful development for anyone who cares about the long-term accessibility of their RAW image and video archives. Will this prompt major camera manufacturers to add native DNG output alongside their proprietary formats, and do you actively use DNG or CinemaDNG in your own workflow? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!