A question for lightroom users

Spoony

Spoony

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Nick
Edit My Images
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If you shoot raw and import to lightroom do you change the file to a dng?

Just reading through Kelbys book and he recomends it as its a smaller file size but he does not mention any disadvantages, just wondering if there were any?
 
Personally I don't,
It might be a good backup plan to save both in view of the fact .DNG is open source, however the support for dng is sorely lacking now and IMHO your more lightly to find a converter for your camera raw in say 10 years after adobe went bust than you are for dng.
The file size difference is not that big a deal, hard drives and blueray disks are realitivly cheap these days.
Another issue for me is dng is still evolving (a new version due soon I'm told) who knows what the compatibility is going to be, the other thing with dng is in some cameras it doesn't have all the cameras info included some features like lens correction and in camera hdr can be missing.
It's got it's uses though, ideal for those with older versions of photoshop that won't open the new raw files, or for emailing to a number of people with different systems etc.
 
Ive never bothered.. I think Adobe was hoping everyone would adopt it, instead of each manufacturer having its own files, but that never happened and now DNG is just kinda floating around not really doing much. It has its uses as above, but its so easy to get a codec for a .NEF or .CR2 file these days, its not so much of an issue as it perhaps used to be.
 
No I leave as CR2. Never saw the point of adding another convert process into my file handling.
 
Thanks for the replies

as always informative and helpful, I will stick to not converting them.

Cheers :thumbs:
 
I do! There are 2 reasons for this, first smaller file sizes and second, the meta data is embedded in the file, rather than in a separate XMP sidecar file.

Having said that I do have an archive of all CR2 files I import into Lightroom.
 
TCR4x4 said:
Ive never bothered.. I think Adobe was hoping everyone would adopt it, instead of each manufacturer having its own files, but that never happened and now DNG is just kinda floating around not really doing much.
Click to expand...

Well, it is used by Leica as the native format of their digital M-series rangefinders and an option by Pentax for their K-series DSLRs.
 
Musicman said:
Well, it is used by Leica as the native format of their digital M-series rangefinders and an option by Pentax for their K-series DSLRs.
Click to expand...

So it's used by two pretty much low volume sales manufacturers. Way to go Adobe.
 
Craikeybaby said:
the meta data is embedded in the file, rather than in a separate XMP sidecar file.
Click to expand...
That's what attracts me to it. I'm only just trialling LR at the moment, but the idea of having lots of additional XMP files floating around kind of puts me off (or puts me on to DNG) - but then I'm not yet in a position where all photo viewing/editing is done via LR rather than Windows.
 
Windows should be able to read DNG just as Lightroom.
 
Must admit I've been converting to DNG for lightroom and backing the CR2 up to a separate directory then cloning that drive to two others thus ending up with 6 copies of the file!
 
I convert everything to DNG and don't keep the original RAW file.

I have LR3, Photoshop/Bridge CS3 and I'm Mac so also look at my files using Finder and Preview. Each of those will display DNG but if I leave as base RAW file then for my X100 at least, LR is the only way for me to see my images. Not an issue if you are using more up to date software but I do very very little in PS so why upgrade?
 
brianwar said:
I convert everything to DNG and don't keep the original RAW file.
Click to expand...
Same here.

There will come a point when raw files shot on long discontinued cameras will no longer be supported by current software... saving as DNG's should hopefully prolongs the life of the files. Plus I don't have to worry about losing the sidecar files
 
brianwar said:
I convert everything to DNG and don't keep the original RAW file.

I have LR3, Photoshop/Bridge CS3 and I'm Mac so also look at my files using Finder and Preview. Each of those will display DNG but if I leave as base RAW file then for my X100 at least, LR is the only way for me to see my images. Not an issue if you are using more up to date software but I do very very little in PS so why upgrade?
Click to expand...


Hi brian,

take a look at this, allows for quicklook of raw files in osx:-

http://www.code-line.com/software/sneakpeekphoto/
 
Spoony said:
If you shoot raw and import to lightroom do you change the file to a dng?

Just reading through Kelbys book and he recomends it as its a smaller file size but he does not mention any disadvantages, just wondering if there were any?
Click to expand...

Hi Spoony,

I don't convert to dng.
  • I have found that any app i have needed to read nikon raw files, can.
  • Converting is an extra step.
  • I don't want to bin my original raw files, and having dng's would mean double the hd capacity needed for backups.
  • As the metadata is stored in the dng file, any change to the metadata triggers a backup of the dng, rather than a backup of a small xmp file with.
  • But if my camera shot dng, i may use it then. The only drawback then is metadata updates triggering backups, but that's not the end of the world
 
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