Converting to DNG

Hello Everyone....

I'm wondering if I could get some advice. I need everyone to tell me if I'm being to cautious.

After a shoot I bring all my files over and convert them in mass to DNG using the Adobe DNG mass converstion tool before importing them into PSE5. I do this as I figure the DNG format is more portable long term. Now after the conversion I save off my CR2 files to a networked harddrive for safty sake and during the conversion process I tell the DNG converter to embed a copy of the CR2 in the DNG, making the DNG file huge.

My thinking is that is always good to have an original to go back to in case. Having one on a drive somewhere is nice, but having one in the DNG file I can extract is nice as well as it requires no hunting.

Am I just wasting disk space, does anyone else do this?

I used to do this, but no longer. I still convert to DNG but since I backup my original CR2 files to DVD I figure I have them there if I need the original file. While DNG hasn't been accepted by all camera makers there are more and more that are using them.

The biggest thing with embeding the CR2 file to me is that if you have to use the Adobe DNG convertor to extract the CR2 file then you most likely also have a program that will read the DNG. The extra 7-8MB is no big deal until you have a lot of files with this extra space. 10,000 photos is 70-80 GB.

I agree with Mike:

If you're going to keep them seperate anyway, why even bother embedding them. You already have the RAW .dng, and the RAW .cr2.

Plus, you're hopefully backing up even your edited .dng files (edits are in the metadata, non-destrucively) to another external source... meaning you'll then (possibly) have:

1) Pristine .cr2 without having to extract from .dng.
2) Working drive with all your images, and edits (.dng, and/or exported .jpgs and tiffs, psds)
3) Incremental backup mirroring your working drive (with .dng and/or exported jpgs, tiffs, psd)

I download using 'Downloader Pro', this is set up to automatically create a back-up of the 'cr2' files in another folder, these 'back-up' files are not touched again except to be backed up.

I then import the 'working copy' images into Lightroom and convert them to 'dng'. This way I still have the original raw files which get backed up to another server and dvd along with my regular backups of the Lightroom library and dng files.

I use dng mainly to save having to use 'xmp' sidecar files or rely on a database to hold the image settings changed/used by lightroom, because dng files embed this info within the image file itself.