Digital negative

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In digital photography and digital film, a digital negative is data which represents "raw" unprocessed image data, and fulfils the same role as a film negative in traditional chemical photography: that is, it is not directly usable as an image, but has all of the information needed to create an image. Unlike traditional photography, a digital negative is not actually in negative (i.e. reversed color and shading), instead it is a positive image.

In digital still photography, this is typically the unprocessed output of the imaging element. In digital film work, this is typically the output of a film scanner used to scan camera negative, with one file for every frame of the motion picture.

Like a photographic negative, a digital negative may have a wider dynamic range or color gamut than the eventual final image format. The selection of the final choice of image rendering is part of the process of white balancing and color grading.

There are many different "raw file" formats for digital cameras. The recent Digital Negative (DNG) file format created by Adobe is an attempt to unify these formats.

The generally-accepted standard for digital negatives in the digital cinema industry is the SMPTE DPX format.

In traditional photography the term digital negative denotes a negative created by a hybrid digital/film process. Special media is placed in an inkjet printer and a negative image from digital image file or scanned film negative is printed. The negative is then contact printed on paper coated with a light sensitive emulsion, such as platinum salts, or other traditional contact printing emulsion. The usual purpose of the procedure is to create physical negatives of satisfactory size for the contact printing process.