Adobe DNG

[photogiant]

Never really tried it before, but was wondering whether most of u guys actually use Digital Negative(dng) for their workflow. Since dng can be read by any CS and Lightroom, is it a better idea to convert all my NEFs to DNG instead?

something like NEF->DNG->Lightroom->CS3?

[Zoobiee]

IMO its always best to save to the native format of your camera with RAW. When you convert from a native RAW format to DNG, there are bound to be some information lost in order to fit into the DNG file format.

[Parka]

I seem to remember that it's a lossless conversion

[Zoobiee]

Originally Posted by Parka I seem to remember that it's a lossless conversion

Pixel information-wise, perhaps but camera proprietary settings and information-wise with regards to camera-specific details, there might be certain info which might be discarded.

[lkkang]

Originally Posted by Parka I seem to remember that it's a lossless conversion

err.. technically not very sound leh.. once the image is quanitze and sampled by a scanner into the computer for processing, there is already an image loss in resolution ( quantisation error or commmonly known as resolution ). It is not possible to have "lossless" sampling other than using the conventional enlarger lens. Something is wrong somewhere...

[ptyap]

Originally Posted by lkkang err.. technically not very sound leh.. once the image is quanitze and sampled by a scanner into the computer for processing, there is already an image loss in resolution ( quantisation error or commmonly known as resolution ). It is not possible to have "lossless" sampling other than using the conventional enlarger lens. Something is wrong somewhere...

RAW images already ARE quantized images.

[Parka]

Just read up on the help section in Photoshop & Lightroom. Says that one can choose a lossless compression when going from RAW to DNG. On side note, a typical zip/rar/dmg file also uses lossless compression.

I like the fact that the metadata is saved onto the DNG photo itself. That's unlike the RAW which writes an additional XMP file.

Metadata standards are universal. Won't be any loss during conversion.

[photogiant]

so are most of u using dng or raw? was thinking of converting all my raw to dng. tho dng convertor has the option of embedding the original raw into the dng but it'd just bloat the file size.

[Parka]

There's a very good discussion on Adobe's forum

http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bc43848

Anyway, I use DNG for the slightly smaller file size and metadata in single file advantage.
If Adobe say there's it's lossless compression, I'll take it.

Choosing file formats is like choosing belief systems. Why would I believe camera makers more than Adobe? See what I mean?

[glennyong]

Originally Posted by photogiant Never really tried it before, but was wondering whether most of u guys actually use Digital Negative(dng) for their workflow. Since dng can be read by any CS and Lightroom, is it a better idea to convert all my NEFs to DNG instead? something like NEF->DNG->Lightroom->CS3?

well.....

what you can do is that you can tweak your NEF first, den convert to DNG... also can..

i will only generate the dng if theres a need to...

other wise.... i will keep the NEF from the conversion. no any particular reason. just playing safe.

DNG is also smaller in file size too...