However, since this information is vendor-proprietary, it is impossible for us to be 100% certain that the converted DNG contains all the private metadata. Our general policy is to include all the proprietary metadata (that we know about) when converting non-DNG raw files to DNG (*).įor example, we include Canon, Nikon, and Sony MakerNote data when converting from CR2/CR3/NEF/ARW/ARQ to DNG. Regarding metadata, I understand your hesitation. The entire file will be marked for backup and often change in size too. * Metadata is written into the DNG, thus marking the file as changed. If you have any feature at all that you want from that software, conversion to DNG is a bad idea. In general, most camera manufacturer software will work only with their own raw file format. Bye-bye pixel shift unless you do it first with the ARW files. DNG usually incompatible with proprietary camera softwareĬonvert your Sony uncompressed raw ARW files to DNG for a ~50% space savings? Oops-the Sony software doesn’t work with DNG. And the dreaded “Time Machine disk is full” headache, since with each change, you’ll get a fresh copy of that 50MB or 100MB raw file. That is, instead of changing 2K of metadata in an XMP file, a huge raw file is changed, making for lengthy backups. And you will have to make a fresh backup to backup the DNG files, and after throwing away the previous raw files.įar worse, unless you lock the DNG files or ensure they are not changed by configuring Adobe software to use sidecar XMP files (only), DNG is modified when edited*-a huge headache for data verification and backups. Loss of capture dates after conversion to DNG by Adobe DNG Converter New backups, wasted timeįirst, converting to DNG is usually and only a waste of your time. Point is, it should not be necessary to fix this problem in the first place! I wrote my own tool for fixing the dates, and some other issues, one that is a lot less capable, but trivially easy to use (eg " img fix-dates "). But having to manually run exiftool to extract and set dates is a burden and hassle, and horribly confusing even for nerds like me, even if you don’t get error messages (I did) and put up with the glacial speed-unacceptable. The dates are not totally lost, since they are in the EXIF information in the DNG. I have asked Adobe to add an option to preserve file dates. If I have multiple _DGL0037.ARW files, it matters if one was shot in 2017, and another in 2018, and 5 others on different dates-I want those dates. The loss of file capture dates is unacceptable I consider this such an egregious issue that I call it a BUG. I often sort by capture date it is a key external attribute(metadata) of the capture. Issues with DNG conversionĬonversion to DNG is not without issues. Your wallet will thank you and you will spend less time backing up, half the time on data validation, etc. Converting such huge files to DNG and saving 50% or more on space ( lossless compression) is very worthwhile. That is, when huge uncompressed raw files are needlessly foisted on you, wasting huge amounts of space on main drive and backups. The only good reason to convert to DNG is for space savings. Benefits of DNG - compression for space savingsĭo you want to backup 8TB instead of 4TB? Spend $4000 instead of $2000 for the same functionality? See the Sony workflow tax, ditto for Hasselblad X2D. Keep your original capture, unaltered! Unless. There are billions of NEF, CR2, CR3 etc files around, and support for them will not end.īarring lack of file format support, there is zero raw-conversion advantage in Lightroom or Photoshop or any other raw converter to using DNG. I’m not buying the claims of “no longer readable”. Archiving your file as a digital negative eliminates worries that the raw file will no longer be readable once the camera format that created it becomes obsolete. Consequently, it can be a safer file format to use for long-term archival purposes. Unlike most manufacturer-specific raw formats, the Digital Negative is an openly published specification that not only is supported by Adobe, but is also freely available for other software and hardware vendors to support. Re: botched design re: Adobe DNG ConverterĪdobe DNG Converter can convert virtually any raw file to a DNG, the format most likely to be supported 20 or 50 years from now, though given the billions of ARW, CR2/3, NEF, etc files, it seems unlikely for those formats to ever be an issue. SEND FEEDBACK Related: Adobe, Adobe DNG Converter, backup, botched design, data compression, exiftool, Lightroom
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