is DNG useless?

babygodzilla

I was told by another member here that it is unnecessary to convert raws to DNGs. What do you guys think about it? I never really thought about what DNG is. I just saw it in Lightroom's options and thought what the heck, why not. I read that it's supposed to be a standard. Unnecessary? even useless?

Thanks

Richard

babygodzilla wrote:

I was told by another member here that it is unnecessary to convert raws to DNGs. What do you guys think about it? I never really thought about what DNG is. I just saw it in Lightroom's options and thought what the heck, why not. I read that it's supposed to be a standard. Unnecessary? even useless?

Thanks

It's a standard, but not one that either Canon or Nikon cameras produce. In that sense, it's like Esperanto compared to English or Chinese. It may come into its own some day, or it may not. Some cameras can produce DNG, and for those it makes good sense to use it. But for everyone else, it adds a step to your workflow without adding much value. In no way is conversion to DNG necessary.

One exception: Adobe appears to be committed to providing free DNG conversion software for all new camera models. If you get a new camera that is not supported by your current version of ACR/LR, you can avoid buying an upgrade by converting the raw files to DNG, which all Adobe products support.

TonyCooper

First of all, for BabyGodzilla's benefit, .dng is a RAW file. You don't convert from RAW to .dng. You convert from one RAW format to another RAW format.

I shoot RAW with Nikons, upload via Bridge, and process in Adobe CS4. When my files are uploaded from the SD card they are automatically converted from Nikon's NEF format to .dng. There is no "extra step" for me.

Since I have Adobe's Bridge and CS4, there is no need for me to have ACR or any other program.

Whether or not BabyGodzilla needs to convert depends on what image software he uses.

Richard

TonyCooper wrote:

I shoot RAW with Nikons, upload via Bridge, and process in Adobe CS4. When my files are uploaded from the SD card they are automatically converted from Nikon's NEF format to .dng. There is no "extra step" for me.

Not an extra step in your case, but extra time to process. There are no free lunches.

TonyCooper wrote:

Since I have Adobe's Bridge and CS4, there is no need for me to have ACR or any other program

You are using ACR to do your raw conversion. It is built into CS4.

arodney

babygodzilla wrote:

I was told by another member here that it is unnecessary to convert raws to DNGs. What do you guys think about it? I never really thought about what DNG is. I just saw it in Lightroom's options and thought what the heck, why not. I read that it's supposed to be a standard. Unnecessary? even useless?

You got poor advise. Read this:http://www.ppmag.com/reviews/200709_adobedng.pdf

Its hardly a “standard” whatever that is supposed to mean. It IS an open format (like TIFF).

TonyCooper

Richard wrote:

Not an extra step in your case, but extra time to process. There are no free lunches.

You mean additional time compared to shooting and processing a .jpg? True.

I'm not sure if that's really a factor. Any time I spend on adjustments in the .dng format I would spend on making adjustments if I was shooting straight .jpg format. If the photo needs adjustments, it's going to get adjustments somewhere along the line.

If it doesn't need any adjustment, I've wasted a whole nanosecond opening it in CS4 from the .dng.

Richard

TonyCooper wrote:

Richard wrote:

Not an extra step in your case, but extra time to process. There are no free lunches.

You mean additional time compared to shooting and processing a .jpg? True.

I'm not sure if that's really a factor. Any time I spend on adjustments in the .dng format I would spend on making adjustments if I was shooting straight .jpg format. If the photo needs adjustments, it's going to get adjustments somewhere along the line.

If it doesn't need any adjustment, I've wasted a whole nanosecond opening it in CS4 from the .dng.

No, I mean additional time compared to just leaving your raw file in NEF format, which avoids the conversion processing. Perhaps that time is trivial to you, but it might not be to someone dealing with many more images than you do. In any event, if you don't have an Adobe support issue with your camera, I still believe there is nothing to be gained.

Art Scott

My way of thinkoing is this......I truly think that Nikon and or Canon would bite the dust before Adobe does......so if that happens then supposrt for propriatary raws will be gone for them (of course sony will be gone before either them.......:D)........so I do take that tiny bit of time to change from one format to DNG and h7ave done this when I first started out and DNG was available.............but I also save the original raw for historical value........storage is inexpensive........................again that dng and raw file are stil smaller than a tiff .........................

CatOne

Art Scott wrote:

My way of thinkoing is this......I truly think that Nikon and or Canon would bite the dust before Adobe does......so if that happens then supposrt for propriatary raws will be gone for them (of course sony will be gone before either them.......:D)........so I do take that tiny bit of time to change from one format to DNG and h7ave done this when I first started out and DNG was available.............but I also save the original raw for historical value........storage is inexpensive........................again that dng and raw file are stil smaller than a tiff .........................

I doubt that Canon or Nikon will go t*ts up before Adobe.

That said, even if they do go away, it's not like support for their formats will disappear immediately. You can always use the DNG converter to convert at that time.

Right now, there are few benefits other than "future proofing" to DNG conversion and you lose the ability to use the vendors own processing tools. I don't see any compelling reason to convert at this time, and if the reasons become more compelling there's no reason I can't do it in the future. So long as Adobe doesn't pull support for CRW/CR2 or NEF from DNG converter what's the rush? And if they _do_ pull it, what's the motivation?

babygodzilla

TonyCooper wrote:

First of all, for BabyGodzilla's benefit, .dng is a RAW file. You don't convert from RAW to .dng. You convert from one RAW format to another RAW format.

I shoot RAW with Nikons, upload via Bridge, and process in Adobe CS4. When my files are uploaded from the SD card they are automatically converted from Nikon's NEF format to .dng. There is no "extra step" for me.

Since I have Adobe's Bridge and CS4, there is no need for me to have ACR or any other program.

Whether or not BabyGodzilla needs to convert depends on what image software he uses.

thanks for correcting me

BradfordBenn

There is one thing to consider and it might not be an issue for you. I went to DNG for everything that I shoot RAW. My reason is that before I went to LR & PS I had to convert the files using different software for the different camera formats. Putting everything into DNG made my workflow easier on the backend, not at the beginning.

It has made it easier now that I am going back through a decade of photos and I just have the DNGs and not even thinking about whether or not the software will handle the format.

The key is to pick a solution for you and stick to it. Trust me changing midstream can make library management a hassle. I have been cleaning and cataloging since January 1, 2010. I have already deleted 200GB (20,000+) of duplicated images because of changing midstream.

arodney

Art Scott wrote:

My way of thinkoing is this......I truly think that Nikon and or Canon would bite the dust before Adobe does......

That’s not the point, you need to think about this a bit more. Kodak is still in business. I have plies of CD’s of raw files from old DCS cameras I can’t access because the software is long, long gone. It hasn’t run on any OS in a decade. And no, I can’t use the DNG converter on them. I have a pile of drink coasters. A company can be in or out of business, it doesn’t ensure a very old file format will be viable.

Art Scott

arodney wrote:

That’s not the point, you need to think about this a bit more. Kodak is still in business. I have plies of CD’s of raw files from old DCS cameras I can’t access because the software is long, long gone. It hasn’t run on any OS in a decade. And no, I can’t use the DNG converter on them. I have a pile of drink coasters. A company can be in or out of business, it doesn’t ensure a very old file format will be viable.

This is true also......and as BradFordBen said if you shoot different camera brands it is just much easier to change to DNG in the first place.......I don't worry about what version of ACR is in my Photoshop or Lightroom version any longer.......as to the use of cam mfg'ers processing software....I never found any that processed as well as the Adobe products I have used.....every one of them I used was slow and clunky.............so I have not looked back.......................

Rhuarc

The biggest advantage for me converting to DNG came in the form of getting rid of sidecar xmp files. I was tired of having to make sure that I backed up both the CR2 file and the xmp file, to save my changes. With DNG all the changes are saved directly inside the file. This makes (for me) the management of my files easier.

The extra 10 to 15 minutes it takes my system to convert a thousand or so CR2 files is worth it, at least for me.

Just my 2 cents!

jjbong

It's a balance, of course. I use DNG because I didn't want to upgrade to Photoshop CS4 just to have Camera Raw parse the Canon 5-D raw files. Using the DNG converter solves this problem. But the files are twice the size of the 5-D raw files. This is not so much a problem with disk storage, thanks to Shugart's Law, but it has impact on the memory Photoshop requires to operate on the image. The practical effects (small, but annoying) are that I have to process fewer images at a time.

Richard

jjbong wrote:

It's a balance, of course. I use DNG because I didn't want to upgrade to Photoshop CS4 just to have Camera Raw parse the Canon 5-D raw files. Using the DNG converter solves this problem. But the files are twice the size of the 5-D raw files. This is not so much a problem with disk storage, thanks to Shugart's Law, but it has impact on the memory Photoshop requires to operate on the image. The practical effects (small, but annoying) are that I have to process fewer images at a time.

Hmm...I don't use DNG, but the memory part surprises me a bit.

The files will be twice as large if you use the converter option that embeds the CR2 within the DNG. This is probably the safest long-term bet, since you can extract the original CR2 in the future if you want. If you don't embed the CR2, the DNG should actually be somewhat smaller than the CR2, but you will not be able to recover it later.

As for memory, I really don't understand what's going on. PS converts all files to an internal representation when it reads them, so I don't see why it should make any difference.

arodney

jjbong wrote:

But the files are twice the size of the 5-D raw files.

They would actually be smaller if you didn’t embed the original proprietary raw into them. There’s no reason to do this and it really slows down backing up the data (anytime you alter the DNG, the entire document will be backed up). Save off the proprietary raws onto a drive and expect you’ll never need them, then the DNG itself will be smaller than the CR2 5D original.

Scott_Quier

To my mind, DNG is a mixed blessing: When you operate on a DNG (do a conversion) any modification instructions are written back to the DNG. This means the DNG file is opened and re-written. A great opportunity for failure. But, there's always backups. So you:

• Backup your RAW/DNG files before you start your editing process
• You make your edits as part of the RAW conversion process and those edits get written back to your DNG file.
• You perform an incremental backup - Because you have re-written your DNG file, the entire DNG file get's included in the incremental. It's not the disk that's the real cost here (disk is getting cheaper all the time) but the time it takes to re-write the DNG to the backup ... unless your computer is on 24/7 and the backups run when the machine is otherwise idle (like during 3rd shift).

Or you save your RAW AND a DNG copy of your RAW and you operate on your RAW file. This can (usually) creates the .xmp sidecar file. It's the sidecar file and neither the DNG or the RAW file that gets included in the incremental backup.

arodney

Scott_Quier wrote:

To my mind, DNG is a mixed blessing: When you operate on a DNG (do a conversion) any modification instructions are written back to the DNG. This means the DNG file is opened and re-written. A great opportunity for failure.

True. And true of any read and write file type. True of the sidecar files as well (albeit, losing one of them instead of the DNG is no big deal). In the end, you gotta back up!

jjbong

Richard wrote:

Hmm...I don't use DNG, but the memory part surprises me a bit.

Thank you, Richard. I misspoke. When I switched to the 5D, I saw much larger image sizes in Photoshop than I expected (50 MB from a 20 MB CR2 file). I assumed (incorrectly) that this was due to the DNG conversion. But looking at that, I see that the DNG file is approximately the same size as the CR2 file (without original image embedded). It's the PSD file (and one supposes) the internal PS representation that are larger than expected. Again, not a big problem, just a little surprising.