Photo Mechanic and DNGs

Digital Camera Scanning
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I wonder if anyone else uses Photo Mechanic in their workflow.

I do and while it won’t show changes made to raw files, it does show up-to-date previews of DNGs. And as @nate recommends using Lightroom’s ‘Enhance Details’ for Fuji files I’ve been trying that. The result is a DNG copy of the original RAF. So now I have DNG files I can see the updated positive version of my camera scans in Photo Mechanic.

Except I can’t. Other than when I can.

If I enhance details thus creating a DNG, then convert using NLP all Photo Mechanic shows is the rotation and crop. Its still a negative. But, if I convert first with NLP and then enhance details PM does show the positive version.

Someone smarter than me may have an explanation or beable to leet me know where I’m going wrong.

Thanks!

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Also, just to add, it seems that once I have my DNG and I can see the positive version in PM, further edits are not reflected there. Its as if once NLP has has its hands on the file something is stopping the embedded JPEG (which is what PM is showing) from updating.

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David, I might be misunderstanding you, but I think this is a question of how LR and NLP work. LR and NLP don’t change the original file (your DNG). Instead, they keep track of the changes to convert and adjust it. If you want the converted, adjusted image to be visible in any other software, you’ll want to export a positive image (LR… File… Export) or use NLP’s check box to make TIFF or JPG copy. Then ANY other software can see the result.

I believe Enhance Details makes a new file. Just like the export I mentioned above.

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Thanks Richard. Yes, LR doesn’t touch raw files and keeps the preview we see to itself. However DNGs are different in that LR does update the JPEG preview wrapped in the file. So that preview JPEG is available for any other browser like PM to display, unlike the preview in a CRW or RAF raw file which Adobe refuse to touch.

So my problem was I assumed that LR would automatically update the JPEG, and especially as I have Preferences set to update XMP. But no, you need to “Update DNG Preview & Metadata” (from the Metadata menu) in order for that to happen. And when I do, Photo Mechanic also updates and I can see the colour edits made in Lightroom.

Sorted!

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