DNG files

Cheeers guys for the advice,
Bill, I’m using a Canon 40D at the moment ,Using a large RAW File all my files have been backed up onto DVD,s and Lately I’ve been using a 1TB hdd
I have been tempted to use DNG in the past but have never had any definitive answers from anyone

So thanks Guys

Kevin

Good question kevinwm…. I’ve been waiting for the moderators to approve my account on the forum to give you an answer.

Converting your RAW files to DNG is perfectly safe…nothing is lost at all… some schools of thought think it’s a good idea as the DNG format is an ‘open’ standard (created by our dear friends at Adobe) vs proprietary format (ie Nikon NEF or Canon CR2). Anything that you’ve done to your RAW file is contained within the DNG file so no work or quality is lost… you’ve just contained your original data in another format that will always be readable in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom, no matter how old or new the file may be… vs needing to update your image processing application whenever a new camera comes out (or operating system if you’re a user of Apple’s Aperture). It’d make a whole lot of sense for camera manufacturers to adobe DNG as ‘the’ RAW format that comes out of the camera so in the future files will always be readable by most any processing application… not likely to happen though.

I hope this is of some help.

p

Personally I would keep all of my RAW files “as-shot” as the RAW file contains ALL of the information that was captured during the exposure. I would be a bit careful as (& I’m guessing here) anything you do to your RAW files will result in something somewhere changing. So I guess that providing you keep the original RAW files you’ll have nothing to lose. Doing it this way gives me the option to go back & re-process any image that I’ve shot safe in the knowledge that all of the info is still there.

I’d be interested to know what camera you’re using? I use Canon 5D 40D 400D (& still have all of their RAW files backed up on an external HD) I tend not to use PS as I try to shoot right first time & therefore only tend to use Canon DPP (which I think is excellent!)