Why convert to dng

Since DNG and Lightroom are both made by Adobe, it stands to reason that they would work well together. If you have ever found doing some simple operations with RAW files in Lightroom frustrating, like switching photos or zooming in to check focus, you will be shocked at how fast things like this are when using DNG files.

Although, it might not be quite as important now with storage so cheap compared to ten or twenty years ago. If you are limited in storage space, DNG just might be a good option for you. Various archival organizations, such as the Library of Congress, even use this format. That means it should work just fine for most photographers too. One additional benefit of DNG has to do with editing metadata and how it is stored. Lightroom is non-destructive , meaning that any changes you make to an image, you can alter at any point in the future.

The original file remains untouched, and a record of your edits is stored separately. When working with RAW files, these edits are written to a very small file called a sidecar. Most people consider this an advantage since it requires fewer files to store and manage, but it can be a drawback which I explore later in this article.

With regular RAW files it can be impossible to detect file corruption. This is a pretty important archival feature for an image format to have. Using Lightroom you can convert to DNG right on import. I would suggest converting to DNG after import as the conversion process does take a bit of time and seriously slows down import!

JPEG is already a standard image format that will be compatible far into the future. By converting to DNG you do gain most of the benefits listed above but you also increase the file size a bit. We shoot in the RAW format Canon. For our portrait sessions we convert all the selects to DNG for archival purposes just the selects, not all the images captured during the session since it does take a bit of time to do the conversion.

Shooting more personal work has made me think about the future of our image archive and best practices to ensure we can easily access our images 50 years from now! Do you convert your images to DNG? I appreciate being able to store edits and other metadata right in the image file.

That being said, I am not sure that I would convert to dng if I were shooting another camera system. To each his own, I guess. Surprised to see that I share similar views with you, not only regarding not converting to DNG, but also not using keywords and doing manual importing to my specification. Great article, thanks!

Another reason to consider not converting the original file to DNG is that some photography competitions -such as the Wildlife Photographer of the Year — require entrants to be able to produce the original propriety file for verification process.

For example. CR2 or. NEF etc. If you have converted your original file to DNG and it is now a. DNG file you wont be able to meet their entry requirements. That can make a big difference in incremental backup size! In my case it depends on the original format. When I used Canon I converted to DNG because it made the files smaller they are still not lossy so no data is lost, DNG has a better compression scheme and the Lightroom edit data can be saved into the DNG and not into a separate file thus keeping the data together.

It is down to whether saving disc space is important to you, and if you save your Lightroom edits to the file whether having those files in a separate file matters to you. You say your camera uses lossy compression. DNG normally uses lossless compression. Is there a better solution for Sony Raw files? Thanks for posting your thoughts on this Matt, I appreciate it. It good to know that you believe that not doing a DNG conversation will have little impact.

Thank again. My workflow for my best photos includes an inconvenient round-trip from Lightroom to Capture One and back. Your email address will not be published. Here goes: Q. Jim Pettit on September 17, at pm. Laura-Ann Charlot on April 12, at pm. Paul Scott on May 18, at am. Matt on May 20, at am. Fran Rhodes on May 2, at am. Thank you, Fran Reply. Here are some things you may not have considered: The DNG format makes the folders a lot cleaner, smaller and less prone to a screw up when copying them to a new location.

Hope this helps anyone on the fence. Steve C on April 24, at am. Tara on September 18, at pm. This is blowing my mind. I am finding the other files are like this too. Matt Kloskowski on September 19, at pm. Jeff Ellis on November 4, at pm. Jeff Ellis on February 1, at pm. George Karaolis on August 26, at pm. David Rogers on May 11, at pm. Linda Enger on April 19, at pm.

Bill Hercus on April 10, at pm. So, there you have it! Nick on July 24, at pm. Pete on March 21, at pm. What camera do you use that has a 42MB raw file? Matt K on March 22, at am. Robin Whalley on March 21, at am. I always keep the original RAW. John Kain on March 19, at am. Lisa on March 19, at am. Peter on March 19, at am. Matt K on March 19, at pm. Peter on March 20, at pm. TeeK on March 19, at am. David K. TeeK on March 18, at pm. Bob Ware on March 18, at pm. DSokolo on March 18, at pm.

Barbara on March 18, at pm. Please sign me up for your newsletter Reply. Richard Siggins on March 18, at pm. Gaylord Mattes on March 18, at pm.

Robin McGrath on March 18, at pm. Joe Martinson on March 18, at pm. Bruce on April 21, at pm. Roland Steenbeek on March 15, at pm. As always thanks for your post. Simon on March 15, at pm. R David Parker on March 15, at pm.

Mike Dean on March 15, at pm. Debbie on March 15, at pm. Matt K on March 15, at pm. Alan D. Brunelle on March 15, at pm. Dals on October 2, at pm. I feel you Alan, we suffer with Fuji and the Develop module!!! Best regards! Jay G. John MacLean on March 15, at am. I agree. Kinda silly. Ray thompson on March 15, at am. The DNG format is open source and will be developed well into the future.

The Kodak raw file format is no longer supported by any application and should serve as a warning. Portability — The DNG file contains all the information about the file, including adjustments.

There is no need to find and include the sidecar xmp file when you are sharing your raw files. This makes converting to a DNG file extremely useful if you are handing your file off for retouching. File size — A DNG file is smaller than the original raw file. Corrupt files — A DNG file contains a checksum validation feature. This checksum feature can check the integrity of your DNG files. Disadvantages of the DNG file format. Time — As I mentioned above, it can take a long time to convert your raw images to DNGs, especially if your raw files are enormous.

Compatibility — This almost sounds like a contradiction to the first advantage I mentioned above, but some software packages do not support editing of DNG files. Backing up metadata — All the adjustments you make to DNG files are written into the file itself. This means that when you save the DNG files, you are forced to copy a complete DNG file rather than just the sidecar xmp data that accompanies raw files. However, if you use Lightroom, you can leave all those changes to be managed by Lightroom without the need to continually save the files.

This is my preferred workflow. Quality — There are still a lot of photographers who will insist that the conversion process reduces the quality of the raw file. Instead, the conversion process adds a new profile of Adobe Standard to the list offered by the camera manufacturer.