Over the years I’ve gone back and forth on this, so I was wondering if there was a general consensus here among NLP users.
Essentially, do you guys make it a habit to always convert your camera RAW files to DNG upon import into Lightroom? The theoretical pros being that DNG is supposed to be a more open source format and more future proof whereas proprietary RAW from canon/sony/nikon etc need to be supported by software etc. More real life pros is that the DNG files are smaller and take up less storage space. This is definitely true in real life for me, using a Nikon Z7II I just converted 34 files and the DNGs come in at 1.69GB, whereas the original NEF files totaled 2.94GB. This is a sizable difference, and the main reason I used to always do the conversion.
The theoretical downside is that you are still making a conversion and perhaps this would degrade the data or something so that it’s not as “Raw” as the original RAW files, even though the conversion is supposed to be lossless.
This is more of a general question but I guess I am also interested in whether this DNG conversion has down sides from a negative lab pro side of things? Does NLP do the exact same job on camera RAW as it does on converted DNGs? I suppose since NLP is essentially Lightroom, there shouldn’t be any downsides. But just curious, thanks.
I tested this and found no benefit in doing so. A few points need to be addressed though
file size…varies depending on which version of the converter is used. According to what I read (without looking for that information) is, that files converted with newer converters were smaller and that this reduction was based on some slight loss that seems to be acceptable to some. So far, I’ve always had enough space for original files (and backup copies!) on internal drives.
Metadata and customising recipes are written to DNGs, hence, there are no sidecars that can be lost, lost with all the info stored within them. On the other hand, how can we restore the original state of a freshly converted file if everything that was added later might not be easily removed?
What does the conversion to DNG do to an image? Supposedly nothing, but it seems that Adobe is adding hidden settings (as do other apps) that somehow contradict the paradigm of “original, unprocessed” image data.
Does it make sense to use a different DNG conversion instead of Adobe’s? Possibly. Apps like DxO PhotoLab can export DNG files that work flawlessly with NLP, even though they have undergone some processing like optical corrections and noise reduction at the cost of bigger files.
Imo and as a general rule, it’s preferable to let the original, OOC files sit on a storage medium and work is done on copies and/or without altering the file’s image, customising and metadata. Other than that, we simply cannot know when a SW-manufacturer pulls the plug on features or supported platforms which might make the one or the other format obsolete and/or unusable. We carry that risk ourselves and all we can do is to read the news and act accordingly.