Keep Raw files after converting to Dng?

joeseph wrote in post #18685621
you might be in luck - I've just updated DPP from 4.7 to the current 4.8.30.0 and it happily opens the D60 files I shot in 2004...

Oh good, and about time too. I don't know how far away MS are from replacing Win10, but could you imagine the outcry if a new release of the OS broke DPP 3.x, and the only software support for the oldest Canon RAW files were third party options? I know I very very quickly moved to RAWShooter Essentials for processing my 300D CRWs, because the original Canon RAW utility that came with the camera was such a POS that it was barely useable on a machine that ran RAWShooter with ease. After RAWShooter was swallowed by Adobe that was when I started down the road to the "darkside" of RAW processing, although I did get PsE 2.0 on a disk with the 300D.

Alan

I am sure the raw files from those older files have the same structure as the 20D, so I would be surprised if they don't open up in DPP4.

EDIT: never mind, Joseph pointed this out.

You shouldn't need to worry about losing Win10... Their roadmap says they are no longer developing any new OSes - It will be Win10 for better or worse. https://www.theverge.c​om …0-last-version-of-windows

joeseph wrote in post #18684540
Having just got a camera that my aged photoshop doesn't recognize the raw files of, I have been converting the files to dng and editing from there.
Is there any valid reason to keep the raw files afterwards?

No. The DNG file contains everything the raw file contains.

Despite all the advice you've received in this thread, there is zero (0.00) advantage to saving the original raw files along with the DNG files. If you have wheat fields of empty disk space and would feel better saving the original raw files, then save the original raw files. No harm in that. Just understand that, as a matter of fact, there is absolutely zero advantage to saving both the raw files and the DNG conversions of those files.

Peano wrote in post #18685707
No. The DNG file contains everything the raw file contains.

Despite all the advice you've received in this thread, there is zero (0.00) advantage to saving the original raw files along with the DNG files. If you have wheat fields of empty disk space and would feel better saving the original raw files, then save the original raw files. No harm in that. Just understand that, as a matter of fact, there is absolutely zero advantage to saving both the raw files and the DNG conversions of those files.

thanks - so is there a way to then check a dng to see which focus point I've used on a particular shot?

Did I read that Canon DPP will open a DNG? I just tried it to see of it showed the AF points and it is not there. I dragged the file into the folder using the OS, restored DPP and I don't see it.

Does the dng store my in camera settings, like WB, picture styles, etc?

TeamSpeed wrote in post #18685778
Does the dng store my in camera settings, like WB, picture styles, etc?

There is no reason why it couldn't, DNG is pretty much an extensible container file format. When using converted DNGs though what gets into the final file is down to the programmer of the conversion software. They may chose to include all of the supplemental manufacturer data such as active AF points, and even things like focus distance information. Or they could just chose to include the basics like the WB info and the "normal" shooting data that is a standard part of the Exif standard. I have never used the Adobe DNG converter, I see no benefit from routinely converting to DNG, although I know they are supposed to load faster in Lr. But then you end up needing to store two copies of the file. The only converted DNG files I have come from the ML DualISO preprocessor. Also as standard Lr doesn't show Canon AF points anyway.

Alan

BigAl007 wrote in post #18685796
There is no reason why it couldn't, DNG is pretty much an extensible container file format. When using converted DNGs though what gets into the final file is down to the programmer of the conversion software. They may chose to include all of the supplemental manufacturer data such as active AF points, and even things like focus distance information. Or they could just chose to include the basics like the WB info and the "normal" shooting data that is a standard part of the Exif standard. I have never used the Adobe DNG converter, I see no benefit from routinely converting to DNG, although I know they are supposed to load faster in Lr. But then you end up needing to store two copies of the file. The only converted DNG files I have come from the ML DualISO preprocessor. Also as standard Lr doesn't show Canon AF points anyway.

Alan

It doesn't seem to store some of the WB data, only what is shot. This is sort of annoying, but not the end of the world.

Another lingering issue is corruption. Dng's give me corrupted raw on occasion. Reconvert does the trick.

I covert to DNG because I still retain a raw file with seemingly original raw traits, at a fraction of the size. For my home snapshots, compressing to 10mp, file size is 3MB vs the original 40MB.... Ton of space savings. No need to keep the original raw.

The reason the Canon raw is so large is that there are containers that hold JPEG contents, including the full sized JPEG, inside the TIFF structure of the raw. It is too bad Canon doesn't give us a setting where we could tell it to only store the raw and all camera settings/copyright info/lens info only. I would think this would help buffer sizes/bursts as well, as the DIGIC processor wouldn't be taxed as much in converting to JPEG all the time and writing all of that out to card.

joeseph wrote in post #18685716
thanks - so is there a way to then check a dng to see which focus point I've used on a particular shot?

DPP won't open a DNG. Where are you currently viewing AF points? I had an LR 3rd party viewer but got rid of it as I really didn't like it so I can't it. Not sure if there is a PS solution for this.

https://www.creative-photographer.com …-points-plugin-lightroom/

Peano wrote in post #18685707
No. The DNG file contains everything the raw file contains.

Despite all the advice you've received in this thread, there is zero (0.00) advantage to saving the original raw files along with the DNG files. If you have wheat fields of empty disk space and would feel better saving the original raw files, then save the original raw files. No harm in that. Just understand that, as a matter of fact, there is absolutely zero advantage to saving both the raw files and the DNG conversions of those files.

The DNG may contain all of the data, but once it is converted to DNG you cannot extract the raw file from the DNG container unless you explicitly configured the DNG Converter to embed the original raw file. If you trash the original raw after conversion, this is a problem if you decide you want to use a raw converter that does not accept DNG files (raws converted to DNG) as input, like DxO Optics Pro/Photo Lab.

I am still not sure what the ultimate strategy of converting to DNG really is in this day and age. Sure, back when Adobe created the DNG format and specifications it was a way to unify raw files into some common architecture, mostly for archival purposes in anticipation of some great industry-wide movement to not support all cameras. But years later the only thing we have really seen in this regard is that most applications that do raw conversion support almost all cameras made, whereas not all support DNG. Also consider that even if the software you want to use supports DNG as an input file, DNG is a specification, but not a standard - it is up to the application's coders to decide what parts of the spec they implement and support. In other words, there is no guaranteed uniformity for DNG support, whereas with raw files, once the raw file format is reverse engineered, you can pretty much bet that most applications that support the camera use a very similar approach to converting the raw file.

In the above example, if you shoot Canon and convert your raw to DNG and trash the raw, you cannot even use Canon's own raw conversion tool to process your files. I can totally understand Canon's thinking in this regard - why support a file format that is unecessary to process our camera's files? I think that pretty much exemplifies the pitfalls of committing to a pure DNG workflow. Also, the DNG container can hold many more things than your image data, essentially making it prone to alteration from its original state - this is antithetical to the non-destructive raw workflow, where the original image file should never be touched or altered. Sure, one can alter some aspects of a raw file (using EXIF Tool, for example) but that is a deliberate choice. If you open a DNG in ACR/LR and make edits, those parametric edit instructions and the resulting preview are written to the DNG file, not a sidecar. This might be good if you need to pass the file to someone to continue working on the file with those edits intact, but that is what RGB files are for. If you use DNG understanding that it contains way more than the original image data, and that you cannot extract that original image data once you commit it to a DNG container, then have at it.

At this time in digital photographic history, I see little benefit of converting to DNG other than to make incompatible image files compatible with a particular piece of software (ie, using outdated software to process newer camera files). And that is not a benefit, just a workaround that adds time and effort to one's workflow. Also, if you choose to embed your raw file in the DNG because you do want to preserve the ability to extract the original raw file, and then you trash the actual original raw file, well now you've put all of your eggs in one basket - if that DNG file fails or otherwise becomes inaccessible, your raw file is gone too.

Here is an overview of the DNG workflow:

https://www.dpbestflow​.org/DNG

If you need some or all of this added functionality, then maybe DNG is the way to go for you, beyond avoiding updating your software. Otherwise, keep your raw files and convert the ones you want to edit to DNG to make them compatible with your old software. If you are holding off updating your software because you do not want to be beholden to the Adobe subscription machine, be aware that you already are beholden to Adobe because you depend upon their (free) conversion tool to use the software you do have.

kirk

I has both PS and LR. PS went CC a few years before LR did. I could send a file from LR to PS but occasionally converted to DNG. I hated converting to DNG. I would upgrade or find something else. Affinity is supposed to be like PS and inexpensive.

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=rPFCpAvzIUo

kirkt wrote in post #18685870
The DNG may contain all of the data, but once it is converted to DNG you cannot extract the raw file from the DNG container unless you explicitly configured the DNG Converter to embed the original raw file.

This is the info that makes me suspicious that the DNG might not contain all the info of the raw file. If it would be a 1:1 mapping of the info then it should be a breeze to create a cr2 file from a DNG file. So far, I did not see anything that would indicate this possibility.

What about Leica M files? They are DNGs. They are raw and contain all the info that was captured.

Here's a conversation of at dpreview about RAW and DNGs. See marshalGs response. I think it's response #4. Gregm further down to.

https://www.dpreview.c​om/forums/thread/42491​38

I see no reason to convert from CR2 to DNG because they are the same. Just keep them as CS2.

One more

https://theblog.adobe.​com/dng-pros-cons-and-myths/