DNG Digital Negatives - Who uses them

[lloydy]

I have some general question sfor all the experienced post processing photogs out there...
Who uses DNG format rather than proprietary camera RAW. What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of both? and where would you use DNG format?

Given that most post processing software will support nearly all the various RAW formats out there, I am unsure of the value of DNG format

I'd be interested in your collective thoughts
regards
Pete

[hoffy]

I have used DNG. This was before I upgraded to CS3 (CS2 didn't support my RAW formats).

Apart from being long winded to use, I saw no benifits

[JM Tran]

I use DNG on canon 5DkmII and newer cameras as my work comp is CS4, whereas the laptop is CS2 - which I use for traveling and quick edits for net posting or to check for corrections etc

I wish all cameras would use or be able to offer DNG option - ala Pentax K20D

[arthurking83]

I'm curious as to what other software(other than Adobe products) support this DNG format?

I've never delved too deeply into it, and my preference is for proprietary(Nikon for me) format as it saves me a whopping amount of space.
There is no need to therefore keep a DNG or TIFF or even the jpg version of the Nikon RAW file, as everything I want(in the edited version) is there, and quick/easy to convert to a format for printing purposes(which is then discarded).

[lloydy]

I'm curious as to what other software(other than Adobe products) support this DNG format?

I've never delved too deeply into it, and my preference is for proprietary(Nikon for me) format as it saves me a whopping amount of space.
There is no need to therefore keep a DNG or TIFF or even the jpg version of the Nikon RAW file, as everything I want(in the edited version) is there, and quick/easy to convert to a format for printing purposes(which is then discarded).

I know that ACDSee Pro 2.5 supports DNG...

[Kym]

I use PEF (Pentax raw) as they are significantly smaller than DNG and get more images on a memory card.

I have the Pentax codec loaded so can browse PEF images with Windows Photo Gallery.

My workflow is PEF > Lightroom > PS CS4 (save as PSD if edited, keep PEF as well) > JPG for publishing/printing.

[arthurking83]

.....

My workflow is PEF > Lightroom > PS CS4 (save as PSD if edited, keep PEF as well) > JPG for publishing/printing.

What I'm curious about tho:

Is the PEF file also edited? that is to say, the edits you've made to the PEF and then saved as PSD, are they retained in the PEF file so that you don't have to o back and re do them all over again?
If they aren't, do you also then have to keep the PSD file so that you don't lose that 'edited image'. Or do you convert to jpg and then dump the PSD file.

I'd hate to have to keep a copy of the original raw file, a copy of the edited PSD/TIFF/whatever(??) file, and also a jpg version which is the most dispensable, yet being the smallest in file size, makes more sense to keep that version and dump the rest(for the sake of space).

[ricktas]

DNG was developed by Adobe as an open source RAW format. The reason behind it was that every camera manufacturer has a proprietary RAW format and even then, across models it is different.

At present it is OK, but what happens in say 15 years time, when a camera brand has literally hundreds of different proprietary RAW formats for all the cameras they have put on the market. There is a good chance that they will not support some of the older ones anymore.

Adobe brought out DNG to try and standardise the industry. It was hoping that the camera brands would come on board and use the DNG format rather than the current mismatched, brand exclusive RAW formats.

I have used DNG, it works, but do I still use it, no. Why? No real reason, just familiarity with my workflow and happy with my workflow that I didnt bother really considering the extra step.

But eventually some of our older RAW files may need to be converted to DNG, when they are no longer supported, to allow us access to them

[Kym]

What I'm curious about tho:

Is the PEF file also edited? that is to say, the edits you've made to the PEF and then saved as PSD, are they retained in the PEF file so that you don't have to o back and re do them all over again?
<snip>.

I don't edit the PEF (Lightroom keeps the 'edits' separate that can always be undone).
I only edit in CS4 sometimes (and yes I end up with PEF and PSD saved).
I'm now deleting a lot more images that are crap (birds seems to mean keeping 1 in 10).

Disk is cheap ;)

[hoffy]

I used to have a similar work flow to Kym, but I have changed slightly.

For starters, I have never saved an edit on a RAW file. I consider them the Source and the base reference spot. I now edit the file how I see fit, convert and save as a full sized JPEG and then resize if needed for the web. If I want to print, I have the full jpeg ready to go. The only hassle is if I need to make a any change, I have to start with the base RAW file (to avoid JPEG artifacts)