[Dave Canon]

I have just updated from CS to CS3 and expect to completely change my workflow. I will drop Rawshooter and the EOS Viewer Utility and use the Bridge and Adobe Raw in future. It has also occured to me that maybe I should also start converting my raw files to DNG. It is not that I think that reading my old raw format will necessarily be a problem in the near future but DNG does sound like it has a more certain future.

Have many others decided to convert to DNG. If so what software do you use?. Are you still saving the original camera raw file? If so, are you storing the original Raw and DNG in the same location. Please add any other tips you can think of, thanks.

[Boofers]

I have some other software that will open Raw and I can do a conversion and save it as DNG which in it self, is kinda neat,,,then the DNG will open in the raw editer that is cool for the effects remain in place that I saved from the first editor,,. DXO is the other software. I haven't seen a lot of programs that save to DNG,,but for me this is a start and I like it. One great advantage is opening B+W images in the raw editor, which I feel is a very powerful conversion. I save all Raw and if needed DNG which I feel both will always be around.

[Markulous]

I look at it from the POV of, if I'm going to start converting to DNG I'll really need to finish converting ALL my RAW files. At @30k that's just too many. So I continue to backup my RAW and trust that I'll be able to convert in the future!

Tho' if I was just starting out with RAW I might just be tempted to convert to DNG as I went along.........

[Dave]

Must admit I keep the original RAW & then any PSD files if I've tweaked it.

[Dave Canon]

Hmm! It does not seem clear cut so far. I also have a few thousand archived RAW files. I have copies on DVD as well as a separate hard drive. I could convert those on the hard drive and I assume that it would be fairly easy as a batch process. Thanks for the replies so far. Anyone else?

[silkstone]

DNG is a proprietary format - actually several formats all going under the same name.

The native DNG format generated by certain cameras like the Leica DMR, Pentax K10d, etc is not the same as converted DNG files. Converted DNG files are not 100% archival without embedding the original, and some DNG tags are not currently documented well enough for anyone other then Adobe to properly create or utilise them. RAW files may contain embedded data that is specific to that particular make/model of camera, and for which no DNG tag exists. (For example, the software-based dust removal on the 400D.)

In other words, DNG may seem to be a step in the right direction and preferable to mutually incompatible RAW formats, but it really needs the camera manufacturers to adopt it as a standard, and there's no sign of that at present. In the meantime, the only way you can be sure that all the original data is preserved is to archive the RAW.

[lcraft]

I'm not all that concerned that Lightroom, Adobe Raw converter, Aperture, Bibble and whatever future raw processors that come along are not going to handle the NEF files my D50 produces today.

If such a point in the future presents itself or a software package comes along that blows away what I am using but does not support my camera's version of NEF I would then consider converting them.


Otherwise I really do not see the point of converting the native RAW format to yet another intermediate format so I can then process it with another software package.

Today I view Adobe's DNG as more of a push to ensure everyone standardizes on their software. I have nothing on my system which supports DNG which does not also handle my NEF files.