Blackmagic Forum

After updating to camera 8.1, the stills are no longer in CDNG and they are BRAW. I liked CDNG since I am able to use Photoshop or Affinity for working on them. What pro still software are you using with the BRAW format? Is there any pro software that, besides DVR, supports BRAW still?

Photoshop or Lightroom don't support BRAW right?

But is there any hope that they will update in the future.

I have a workflow to manage Blackmagic Design still from braw from many years

1) resolve to select and extract with export frame
2) manage color balance and exposure from resolve
3) export tiff 16bit
4) edit framing in capture one and later in photoshop if need


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similar to Carlo

Braw from camera to Resolve, managed and graded in Resolve and exported as 16-bit tiff, then can go to Photoshop.

It's arguable that the grading tools in Resolve are better than those in any stills editing software so you really don't need anything else.

Rather than using BRAW stills that are not supported by ON1:
Just finished grading production DNG stills for a client in ON1 that were captured as DNG on the iPhone 14 Pro. There’s still some shutter delay after hitting the shutter button on the phone but it’s more predictable that the stills shutter release on the BMPCC4K.

If you’re extracting stills from your video, you at least get the precise moment you want and can use Resolve, but using a photo editor can also have advantages including many more options for preset looks or image adjustments.

rick.lang wrote:Rather than using BRAW stills that are not supported by ON1:
Just finished grading production DNG stills for a client in ON1 that were captured as DNG on the iPhone 14 Pro. There’s still some shutter delay after hitting the shutter button on the phone but it’s more predictable that the stills shutter release on the BMPCC4K.

Rick, there is no DNG with 18.1 anymore, hence my inquiry here. Yes, I can use an IPhone however, flimsy as the shutter button is on the Pocket, there are times when I’m on a roll and just want to take a still in between recordings.

rick.lang wrote:If you’re extracting stills from your video, you at least get the precise moment you want and can use Resolve, but using a photo editor can also have advantages including many more options for preset looks or image adjustments.

That’s true, but it is my understanding that the still has much more pixel resolution that the video which is 6K at best. Am I wrong?

Why can’t BMD just leave CDNG for stills in their firmware and set it as an option to either BRAW or CDNG in the menu? This might be wishful thinking on my end.

Would be a reasonable feature request.
But why do you expect a still to have more resolution?

Ellory Yu wrote:… it is my understanding that the still has much more pixel resolution that the video which is 6K at best. Am I wrong?

Why can’t BMD just leave CDNG for stills in their firmware and set it as an option to either BRAW or CDNG in the menu? This might be wishful thinking on my end.

Ellory, I think the largest DNG stills I shot with the iPhone 14 Pro using Photos are 36 megapixels (8K 8064x4536 16:9) and the recorded DNG is almost 76 MB. Perhaps other apps like Filmic Pro use more

I don’t know why BMD switched to BRAW but they may have had some good reasons related to colour science or other features that BRAW brings.

As of right now, GraphicConverter12 beta can open and edit Braw stills. I asked the developer to implement braw, which he did. Especially the browser option is very nice and a bit like Adobe Bridge, although metadata are still hard to read.

Uli Plank wrote:Would be a reasonable feature request.
But why do you expect a still to have more resolution?

I thought I read from somewhere that it is different but I stand corrected. Nevertheless I found this in the manual which addresses the CDNG option.



So if I want the still to be in CDNG, all I have to do is set the codec to Prores. If that works, then that’s a good workaround. I can then bring the CDNG into PS, Affinity, or ON just as well. Sometimes it is good to RTFM.

There should be the option between selecting DNG or BRAW for stills.

ShaheedMalik wrote:There should be the option between selecting DNG or BRAW for stills.

I believe always everyone agrees with you. BMD add this on the next pocket firmware update.

rick.lang wrote:

Ellory Yu wrote:… it is my understanding that the still has much more pixel resolution that the video which is 6K at best. Am I wrong?

Why can’t BMD just leave CDNG for stills in their firmware and set it as an option to either BRAW or CDNG in the menu? This might be wishful thinking on my end.

Ellory, I think the largest DNG stills I shot with the iPhone 14 Pro using Photos are 36 megapixels (8K 8064x4536 16:9) and the recorded DNG is almost 76 MB. Perhaps other apps like Filmic Pro use more

I don’t know why BMD switched to BRAW but they may have had some good reasons related to colour science or other features that BRAW brings.

Dng is abandoned format from Adobe from 2017, they declare that not develop more, only dng converter seems sometimes be updated to add some newer raw support.

cDng from Blackmagic Design often was read in the worst way from Adobe software, In Past I bought a profile to use correctly it on camera raw and Lightroom. I remember that Adobe software read with worst profile high contrast and hyper satured clips. Later I started to use more resolve and I forget to read cDng in Adobe software.

I think Blackmagic Design decide to move to braw still for more metadata’s and more resolve friendly.

I hope they decide to enable it in a preview in cam.


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kontrakatze wrote:As of right now, GraphicConverter12 beta can open and edit Braw stills. I asked the developer to implement braw, which he did. Especially the browser option is very nice and a bit like Adobe Bridge, although metadata are still hard to read.

Does anyone know of a tool similar to GraphicConverter that also runs on Windows?

It would be great if Blackmagic Design upgrades their RAW Player to a proper quick viewing app with at least some features like next/previous file in the same folder.

Set your codec to Prores instead of BRAW and you can shoot still that generates CDNG files. I just wish BMD would give us a switch in the firmware to set stills to either BRAW or Prores without having to first select the film codec.

I get where you're coming from, however for example on a PCC6k ProRes limits the resolution to 4k DCI and I think it's not too much to ask from Blackmagic to improve the support for the workflow with BRAW stills so that users don't have to rely on third-party software that (on Windows) doesn't even seem to exist at this point in time.