Why doesn’t Camera support PNG format?

PNG is a better image format than the Jpeg as most people know. But digital cameras don’t have the option to process PNG images. If cameras could support png file formats, most of us will love to use them. But, why doesn’t a camera support png format? 

PNG format does not have the advantage of giving small files and preserving all the data collected from the Image. Compared to Jpeg, Png takes more time rendering the image, consumes more battery, and also lacks scaling property. Because of these PNG limitations, digital cameras don’t support Png formats.

I prefer PNG over JPG because of various reasons. One reason is PNG is lossless compression. That means your photo will be compressed but the clarity will be the same. So, you get the same image quality and sharpness even after compressing. 

I haven’t seen a camera in general that supports Png. I searched when my friend asked about png image formatting in the camera. I found some surprising facts from the Internet and from some photo experts. So let’s read more about it in detail. 

Why do digital cameras not support PNG?

The Portable network graphics image is absolutely better than the JPG without any digital noise. If we talk about the history of Png, Png was created back in 1996. It was developed as an improved replacement for GIF. 

The PNG working group designed the format for transferring images on the Internet but not for hard copies (not for quality print graphics). That’s why Png only supports RGB colors but not non-RGB colors. Png specifications were released on 1st October 1996 but certified in March 2004. 

Now let’s talk about the compression. PNG uses a 2 stage compression process. Pre-compression and compression. Png has the advantages of portability, completeness, losslessness, efficiency, compression, and ease. 

Some digital cameras do support PNG but not many. Super expensive cameras support Png over Jpg and there is a reason for that. 

If your camera can output PNG files, you would need to wait twice as long for each image to store in the memory, and no need to mention your battery. JPEG is the best possible image format. 

1 PNG does not have a way to store EXIF data

EXIF is a short form of Exchangeable Image File (you can read more about EXIF from WikiPedia), a format that is standard for storing interchange information in digital photography image files using JPEG compression. 

All-new digital cameras have this EXIF annotation to store information of the Image such as Exposure, shutter speed, Aperture value, metering, flash usage, date and time, white balance, ISO number, and more. 

PNG does not have a standardized way to store data in EXIF. This could be the reason camera manufacturers avoid using PNG. Some photographers intentionally strip EXIF data from their images to protect their style. But some of them keep the data so that others can learn from it. 

Many photographers choose to retain EXIF data in their images and the information can be seen through web browsers because it is not part of the actual image. PNG files are best with a small color palette only.

2 Longer rendering time

PNG is a lossless compression while JPEG is a lossy compression. Even though PNG has RGB color depth, png file format saves more colors than JPEG and for that reason, png takes more rendering time.

Not all image formats are equal, encoding time would be different for various formats. Both Png and Jpeg have to depend on these four parameters; Bit depth, Compression, Alpha, and encoding performance. 

Bit depth would be higher in Png because it determines how much information the image can actually hold which influences the dynamic range of the image. Compression can be lossless and lossy. 

Png image executes a lossless compression image that has a larger file than Jpeg. The speed of rendering time depends on the size of it. As PNG has more data and a poor compression ratio, it takes more time to render and the disk space will be a concern. PNG uses unassociated alpha and OpenEXR alpha but JPEG doesn’t have an alpha channel. 

File: Machine_shop_01_8k.hdr

Image Format	Average saving time
PNG	150 sec (Original measurement) 12 sec (with default compression ratio)
JPEG	03 sec
J2K	30 sec
TIFF	20 sec
TARGA	10 sec
OpenEXR	01 sec

The results may not be accurate all the time but the difference would be the same. From the table, you can clearly say that PNG takes so much time to save the image. The performance comparison is with the highest quality settings. 

3 PNGs are not so good print outs

PNGs are designed to transfer over the Internet but cannot be good at printing output. You can definitely take PNG print, but JPEGs are more likely to perform better in this area. 

If you are working with the photos, for color depth and format, PNGs can easily handle high-resolution photos. But the file size would be larger and the battery drains two times faster than the actual time. 

The storage would be another concern for the photographers, it takes more storage space even after compression. So, people want to save rendering time, battery, and memory cards. 

These are the notable factors to consider JPEG over PNG in digital cameras. The colors may be a little different while processing the png image and the printer has to interpret a different color. The final output may be lost in translation. Even though the difference may not be noticed, experts can see the variations.

4 PNGs do not have the Scaling Property

Now, this is an important factor to talk about. Digital cameras need to rapidly process multiple images of different sizes. The camera shows you the small-sized image on the camera display and you can download the big picture anywhere. 

Jpeg provides two options for handling smaller images. Jpeg can store multiple images but the camera just needs to save a big picture and a small picture of the Jpeg. 

Cameras could use DCT scaling property to render the image at any size and any aspect ratio will be overhead. Camera stores the thumbnails of the same image inside a Jpeg. 

Scaling also works well for making the images larger and final images actually have a better color. Unfortunately, PNG lacks the scaling property. If you want to scale a PNGm, then you need to do it on your own. PNG can only save one Image. 

There wouldn’t be any thumbnails or alternative sizes. That’s the reason why PNGs are not ideal for digital cameras.  

Cameras that support PNG

These are some devices with PNG support. Most of the cameras are read-only type but here I included ‘Write’ png images compatible cameras. 

Kodak DVC 323: All versions of this device supports PNG export and some other formats for still as well. The older digital video camera model DVC 300 also supported PNG. 

FoneCam: This is a hardware and software combo, a modern video camera that supports PNG.

Snappy (Software): The Snappy version 3.0 and later video capture devices supports PNG and is capable of capturing from any video source like videocam, TVs, VCRs, and more. The product has been discontinued now. 

Conclusion

When you need the Image with the maximum data, you need to create either a RAW or TIFF format image. RAW is the native format of the camera itself and you need some special software just to read RAW output files. TIFF is also designed to store all the data needed but the output is huge. 

PNGs store true 24-bit color images and the processing is also simple. No need for any application-specific fields. However, single file saving limitation and rendering time lack it from entering into digital cameras.

Keeping the Image size aside, PNG does not have standardized EXIF embedding. There would be a lot of information loss after Image conversion. The camera may get demosaicing artifacts and the output file might result in bad color balance. The RAW file is also the better option if the memory storage isn’t a big issue. RAW files are more accurate in post-processing the image.