Original dng file

I'm fairly new at Camera Raw, etc. and am confused over something. If I take a .dng file and modify it in Camera Raw, is there any way to restore the original .dng image short of going back and getting it out of the camera again?

raw files never have their data altered, that's one of the advantages of using them. Select the file in Bridge and go to Edit->Develop Settings->Clear Settings to wipe all the edits that you made to it

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Can you automatically embed Exif data in DNG files LR4

For years I have been using Bridge and ACR for my raw workflow. I use only DNG files and have the database turned off so the EXIF data is embedded right into the original DNG file. This means my files are 100% portable without and sidecar.
Can I work with lightroom 4 without having a database? OR can I assure that each DNG file has all it's setting automatically embedded as it does in Bridge?
Thanks,
Tom

In the catalog settings, metadata tab, there is an option to automatically write to XMP. That should do what you want. Since there is no sidecar file with the DNG file exif data will be written to the file.

Best workflow using DNG files from Odyssey 7Q in Premiere 8.1

Finally, the magenta highlights issue has been fixed in this new 8.1 version of Premiere - lovely! :-)
I'm wondering though, what the best workflow is when using 2K/4K raw dng image sequences from the Odyssey7Q? In this case, shot on the Sony FS700.
Is there a simple and easy way to batch import a bunch of clips?
The behavior of the Media Browser in Premiere is a little different than the last version... When you choose the individual dng clip folders it now shows one single dng sequence files instead of a bunch of individual png images. But you still have to browse to each clip folder and choose the dng sequence file. If you just choose the root that contains the clip folders or if you choose multiple clip folders, it will import the content of those folders as individual dng image files! Pretty annoying...
Does anyone know of a better way to import where you don't have to choose each clip manually?
Also, how do you bring a PP edit sequence into AE for ACR processing? You can't copy/paste the files and you can't choose "Replace With After Effects Composition" - those two methods will just import one single DNG frame into AE.
You can import a whole PP project into AE but that will just show the entire PP sequence as one single file. You can't access the individual clips or open it in ACR.
The best method I know of is export all the DNG sequences as proxies, edit the material using the proxies on PP timeline, copy/paste that into an AE comp and then manually replace each of the used proxy files with the original DNG files, which will open up the ACR. But that's a bit of a hassle...
Is there any way of taking advantage of the full dynamic range of the DNG files in Premiere? When I bring down and overexposed image using either fast color correction or by right-clicking on a clip and choosing "source settings..." and using the exposure slider, the image looks "flat" but when I do the same thing using the ACR, I can reintroduce the details otherwise lost in the overexposure.
Any info or advice on this will be greatly appreciated

Hi EyelightKasper,
See if this method will work for you: Re: How to import multiple DNG files into Premiere
Thanks!
Kevin

Editing a DNG file and saving it again as DNG using Photoshop

Hi everyone,
I have a set of .dng raw images which I would like to edit using Photoshop and save back out as .dng files. It sounds like a very simple task, but I have been struggling with this for half a day.
To give a concrete example, I have two dng images from the same camera. I want to copy an object from one image and paste it to the other, and then save out the output as a .dng file. This should take me like 2 minutes in Photoshop, right?
Well, when I open the files, it first brings up the Adobe Camera Raw tool, but this only lets me do very basic edits (I can't figure out how to copy an object from one image to another, let alone perform the necessary edits to blend them seamlessly.).
So I click "Open Image" to get them into Photoshop, where I can do all of my necessary edits (copy and paste, brushes, etc.). However, after I am finished and I try to save my edits, Photoshop only lets me save the output in .psd (along with other formats) but not dng. I need to save it back out as .dng, as the next program in our workflow pipeline requires .dng files as input. So how do I do this simple task?
Why can't I save my resulting image back out as a .dng file? I tried saving as .psd and then using Adobe DNG converter to turn it into a dng, but it doesn't seem to be able to do that. I also tried saving as Photoshop RAW, but for some reason the converter can't convert from Photoshop RAW to DNG. It doesn't make any sense to me.
I know that Photoshop knows my camera parameters because it was able to read the original dng files properly in the first place. So why can't I read in the .dng image make some edits and then save it? How are people editing dng files?
Thanks for your help.

Also, there is no way to turn an image back into raw image data after it has been edited in Photoshop. It would be as difficult as uncooking an egg.
I understand that this is difficult if I am doing arbitrary image editing operations, since those operations may not be properly defined in the RAW space. But in this case I am cloning pixels from one .dng image to another. Shouldn't this be possible?
For example, assume we have 2 dng images and we want to take the left half of one and paste it in the same position over the other. I am not familiar with the dng spec, but at some level it should encode the values at each pixel (perhaps with the appropriate camera curve). So I just simply want to overwrite the values of one .dng image with values at the same pixels of the other, and since it's the same camera with the same settings used for both this should be possible, right? In the worst case, I could write a program based on the DNG spec that parses the two dng files, overwrites the necessary pixel information simply using the second image's data, and then writes the dng back out. But this seems like a complicated way to do something that there should be an Adobe tool to do.
Perhaps it would help if I tell you exactly why I need this for. We are capturing raw video using the Blackmagic Cinema Camera which outputs a directory full of 2.5k dng images for each take. We were doing a take of a scene using a tripod, but an otherwise great take was ruined because at one point a crew member poked their head into frame. So I want to use information from the other dng frames to overwrite this portion of this image to hide this problem.
If these were regular images (.jpg, .tif, .exr) it would take us no time in Photoshop to use the information from the other "good" frames to fix this problem seamlessly. However, we would like to keep everything in dng format so that I can then read everything into DaVinci Resolve for color grading correctly. Any idea on how I can do this, if I can't use Photoshop?
Thank you in advance for your help!

A way to merge edits in virtual copies back the the original dng

I have a large set of images from a recent job (all with varying edits). My client if there was a way to take the final set of images an apply a variety of different lightroom edits to compare against the original set. I made selected my full set of original dng files and created several virtual copy sets and placed them in separate collections. After making a variety of tests the customer has decided on one of the virtual copy sets. Is there a way to merge the edits in the virtual copy set back to the original dng files? Is there a way to make a virtual copy set into its own set of dng files.
Jim

Is there a way to make a virtual copy set into its own set of dng files.
A very quick way is to either export originals (or as dng, which does the same thing in this case) on the virtual copy set, which will give you a folder on your harddisk with "edited" dngs (I quote this because there is no such thing as edited dngs. The RAW data is untouched, there is just a develop recipe along with a jpeg preview saved into the file). Another way is to export the collection of virtual copies to a new catalog. You can include the originals if you want, or you can simply leave them in place if you don't want to double the needed storage space. You'll get a new catalog with just the virtual copies in it, but they will be masters at that point. Then you write metadata to file from this newly exported catalog.

How can I import DNG files into iPhoto 8?

Shooting with a Canon Rebel XT, I've downloaded RAW files onto my hard drive, edited them in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and saved them as digital negatives (DNG) with the .dng extension. Bridge and iPhoto work with these just fine, but iPhoto doesn't seem to want to import them.
Aside from saving them as jpegs or TIFFs, is there any way to get these files to play nice with iPhoto 8?

I'm having the same problem with iPhoto after editing my images in Bridge and converting the files to DNG before importing to iPhoto. The metadata on the DNG file will not show up in iPhoto when I import DNG files. Yet, if I convert the DNG files to JPEG and import the JPEG files into iPhoto all the metadata and keywords in the original DNG files is imported. I use Bridge and CS3 for editing but want to use iPhoto for asset management.

Why DNG files are bigger when converting from TIFF?

When I shoot in RAW, my normal workflow is to convert all images to DNG and start editing in Lightroom. But as you know, there are some photos that need extra editing in pixel based software such as Photoshop.
When I right-click a DNG in Lightroom and chose "Edit In... » Edit in Adobe Photoshop", the photo will be opened in Photoshop as an 8-bit TIFF file for editing. For demonstration of my issue, let's assume I don't do any changes and just save the file as it is. A new TIFF file will be created next to the source DNG with "-Edit" in it's name.
Back into Lightroom, both files are almost the same, one is DNG, the other in 8-bit TIFF. From this point (assuming I did change something in Photoshop, otherwise what would be the point in opening it there) I should do my further editing in Lightroom in the TIFF and not the DNG one. Let's say I'm done with the work and export the final edited TIFF file back into a DNG (I like this format and I like to keep all metadata changes so I can easily revert back to the original). I've also exported the original DNG file for comparison.
And now I realize the following:
DNG to DNG » ~7Mb (basically the same as the original DNG)
TIFF to DNG » ~15Mb
Why such a big difference?
I didn't do any editing either in the original DNG or the Photoshop converted TIFF. Any techincal reason for this that I'm not aware or am I doing something wrong?

I did a little bit of research and:
1) The embedded previews are always JPEG files (medim or full size, doesn't matter). But now that I think about it, I don't think you were talking about the previews when you mentioned the TIFF being embedded.
2) I did a quick EXIF lookup on 3 files exported to DNG: a) Original DNG b) 16-bit TIFF converted to DNG c) 8-bit converted to DNG. Here's the EXIF results:
a)
SubfileType                     : Full-resolution Image
ImageWidth                      : 3736
ImageHeight                     : 2772
BitsPerSample                   : 16
Compression                     : JPEG
PhotometricInterpretation       : Color Filter Array
SamplesPerPixel                 : 1
b)
SubfileType                     : Full-resolution Image
ImageWidth                      : 3648
ImageHeight                     : 2736
BitsPerSample                   : 16 16 16
Compression                     : JPEG
PhotometricInterpretation       : Linear Raw
SamplesPerPixel                 : 3
c)
SubfileType                     : Full-resolution Image
ImageWidth                      : 3648
ImageHeight                     : 2736
BitsPerSample                   : 8 8 8
Compression                     : JPEG
PhotometricInterpretation       : Linear Raw
SamplesPerPixel                 : 3
This probably means something like you said... The embedded files are different and some take more space than the others. The first one is 7.220Kb, the second one (16-bit TIFF) is 44.030Kb and the third one (8-bit TIFF) is 15.284Kb.
It makes sense I guess, but I still would love to hear a more technical explanation for it but it's obvious it has something to do on how the pixels are saved in the DNG file. The keyword is probably the PhotometricInterpretation.

Why no 'Edit Original' with raw or dng files?

Is there a reason Lightroom does not allow the ability to use an external editor on the original raw/dng file? Why force people to use the Capture NX raw converter if they would like to use their camera specific converter instead?

This is a great point. There are many instances where I need to use a camera manufacturer's conversion software because I am unable to get similar results in Lightroom (Still a problem in LR3 - many posts about this in these forums).
I was going to write about a tip for a workaround, but instead I actually uncovered a very unfortunate behavior in LR3.
Previously, in LR2.x, you could drag any thumbnail from the Grid view onto the app of your choice in the dock. It would immediately open the original file (including RAW images) in that editor, and you could then save a Tiff to be re-imported into LR, or whatever you wanted to do. It was great flexibility, and got around having the formal ability to assign an external editor for RAW files (which by the way I agree, is necessary functionality, and should be included).
NOW, in LR3, this behavior has been shut down. You can no longer drag thumbnails from the grid view onto an external editor.
Adobe Lightroom team - this is a huge mistake. Please restore the old functionality. You should know - trying as hard as you do, your RAW rendering is still not the only game in town. I own your product, along with five other RAW editing applications. Sometimes I need to try each one to see how a particular image works out. I still prefer to use Lightroom as my cataloging software. This will change if you start to close things down to force users to stay in your ecosystem.
Apple Aperture takes a similar approach - when you drag an image onto an application, you only open a jpeg preview of that image, not the original RAW file. This is one of the reasons I ditched Aperture and moved to Lightroom. I liked the flexibility. Now that this has been taken away, it gives me another reason to consider passing on this upgrade. Please give this some thought. You do not have all the answers for RAW rendering, and realistically, unless camera manufacturers standardize, you probably never will. Give us back our flexibility, or better yet, build it in formally as the original poster suggested.

Embed original RAW file in DNG?

Is there any way to set the DNG conversion in Lightroom to embed the orginal RAW file upon import (similar to how it works in the DNG converter program that is put out by Adobe)? It appears that the Lightroom DNG converter will only convert the RAW file to DNG without embedding the original...any suggestions or comments??? Thank you in advance.

Maybe I've misunderstood the question or else I'm missing something here.
I have Adobe's standalone DNG converter on my Desktop which I used to use previously, and yes, there is an option of embedding the original RAW file which I chose to use. At the end of the day this process produced on file - the dng - and buried within it was the original RAW.
I had reservations about LR's convert to dng process in the beginning but am now beginning to see the advantages of it. When I convert my RAW file to dng I now get 2 files in the original image folder - one being the ORIGINAL Raw image, the second the dng conversion. So now I have the best of two worlds, and although it takes up more HD than previous I'm beginning to like it this way. Some posts on this issue seem to imply that in the conversion to dng process the original Raw is somehow being lost and this quite simply isn't the case.

When backing up photo is it necessary to include all edited files or is th original dng sufficient?

when backing up photo is it necessary to include all edited files or is th original dng sufficient?

I don't keep a lot of edited copies of images. They aren't really necessary. I keep my master images (all raw files) and use them for browsing in Lightroom and for printing. Sometimes there are TIF files when I have gone to Photoshop to make further corrections. But other than that, I don't keep copies. I make copies for e-mail or to send to a lab, etc., but once they've been used I delete them. So backing up the master files and the catalog is really the most critical, in my opinion.

Can I create DNG files while at the same time keeping the original camera RAW images?

I wish to create DNG files for my existing Lightroom catalogue, but also wishe to retain the original camera RAW images. If this can be done can you please advise how I go about it as I seem only to be able to find an option for conversion to DNG only.
Thanks

In the Conver-to-DNG dialog, you have the option to have the original Raw file deleted or not:
But, after the conversion, only the DNGs will show up in the catalog, not the original Raw images also.
Beat

Can I convert to DNG after I have edited all my original Raw files in Lightroom?

I'm asking because i've become convinced to use DNG's instead of NEF's and RW2's from my Nikon and Panasonic cameras. My main reason is future compatibility.
I have already edited all my NEF's & RW2's from the past 2 years in their native file format in Lightroom 4. Is it still ok to convert them to DNG now (even though they have been already edited (non-destructively of course)).
Thanks.
Also, why can't Windows Explorer show thumbnail previews of DNG's on my Windows 8.1 64bit Pc. I assume is has something to do with not having the DNG codec. However, on Adobe's website it says their DNG codec only works on Windows 7. Any ideas?
Thanks again.

Yes, you can convert your images to DNG at any time. But are you absolutely sure you want to do that? You won't be able to use any Canon or Nikon software to work on those DNG files if you ever find a need to do that. And I really wonder about the "future compatibility" issue. But the choice is yours, of course.
You will have to do a Google search for a DNG codec. It will have to be installed in order for you to see your DNG content in Windows Explorer. You worry about future compatibility, but you have to be concerned about compatibility now in order to use DNG files.

Is it wise to keep the Nikon camera files "DSC's" after downloading them and converting to DNG files via Adobe converter for lightroom use. In other words do the DNG files have all the raw data I would ever need in processing or should I save the camera'

Is it wise to keep the Nikon camera files "DSC's" after downloading them and converting to DNG files via Adobe converter for lightroom use. In other words do the DNG files have all the raw data I would ever need in processing or should I save the camera's DSC files?

DNG files do not contain some metadata supplied by the camera, which can be used by the manufacturer's software. Thus, if you don't keep the original Raw photo, you will lose this information.
If your 1000% sure you're never going to use the manufacturer's software, then this isn't a problem. But who can be sure what software you will be using 10 years from now?

Importing, copyping raw files as DNG files - copy to location choice, and more ???

First:
When I copy raw files as DNG files, the right hand pane shows where the copies will be placed. (I use Windows 7) I do not have much of a choice, and cannot set a default. The default choice is "My Pictures" on the C: drive. I have an Solid State Drive, SSD, and do NOT store my photos on that small, 256Gb drive. I store my images on an internal hard drive.
All i want to do is set the default "Copy To" location to where I store my images. I would like to copy them to the original folder, in a separate folder (for example, LR DNG). Instead, I have to open the SSD, find the files, and copy them to my preferred location. This is very irritating.
Second:
Worst, it appears that the Copy function puts the copied images into multiple folders. I had 11 images from raw files that were put into three separate folders. That seems quite silly to me. It causes me to do more work opening the folders and copying them to the root folder. That is very irritating. What is going on here?
can these two issues be resolved? Thanks, in advance.

My apologies. I thought it would open the selected folder and reveal the images to be converted. That would be the most obvious thing to do, but it does not behave that way. I made a couple folders with test images, CR2 and RW2, and the converter converted them.
Again, the navigation was funky, inconvenient, but it works. i complain because we pay a lot of money to use Adobe products, they have huge resources, and they seem to release products that have obvious flaws, especially navigation. Maybe they just hate Microsoft. Sorry for the rant.
Thanks for getting me to use DNG converter.

Convert RAW Files in Your Aperture Database to Adobe DNG Files

The following describes how to convert all the RAW images in your Aperture database from manufacturer formats, such as Sony's ARW and Canon's CR2, to Adobe's DNG while retaining all the Adjustments already applied to your RAW files. In the example below I am assuming that your Aperture Library has ARW and CR2 files. These steps work with the latest version of Aperture, being Version 3.3, and have not been tested with earlier versions (in fact, it probably will not work because the database structure changed in 3.3 - however, this means that the steps below can also be applied to your iPhoto library). The steps are:
1. Within Finder select the Aperture Library and Secondary Click to bring up the Shortcut Menu. From this select "Show Package Contents"; this will open a Window showing all the files/directories contained within your Aperture Library.
2. Drag the "Masters" folder out of the Package and place it on your Desktop. The purpose of this step is so that Applications, such as Adobe DNG Converter, can "see" the "Masters" folder, which they cannot do if it is located within the Aperture Library Package.
3. Run the Adobe DNG Converter, select the above "Masters" folder with the "Select Folder" button, make sure you have selected the option "Save in the Same Location", it is also a good idea to select the option "Skip source image if the destination already exists", check your Preferences then select the "Convert" button.
4. Adobe DNG Converter will now convert all the RAW files to Adobe DNG files and save them in the same location as your existing RAW files. Once complete, take a note of (a) the number of files converted and (b) the types of files converted, such as if the conversion includes ARW, CR2, NEF files etc. In this example I will assume that the converter only found ARW and CR2 files; if your system is different then modify the steps below to make sure it covers all the RAW file types converted in your particular system.
5. Select the "Masters" folder and in the Finder Window Search Field search for all the files that end in .ARW and .CR2 (this filename search list should match the types of files found by the Adobe DNG Converter in step (4)(b) above). The number of files returned by the search must match the number of files recorded by the Adobe DNG Converter in step (4)(a) above. Do NOT put the .DNG files in your search criteria. Select all the files found in the search and move them to the Trash. This will delete all the original manufacturer's RAW files from your Aperture Library leaving behind all the new DNG files.
6. Move the "Masters" folder on your Desktop back to the root directory of the Aperture Library Package Content directory.
7. Select the Finder Window containing the Aperture Library Package Contents.
8. If there is a file called "ApertureData.xml" then open it with a text editor. Search and Replace ".arw" with ".dng", ".ARW" with ".DNG", ".cr2" with ".dng" and ".CR2" with ".DNG" (note, do not use the " marks in your search). Make sure you cover all the file types incorporated in your particular system. Save the "ApertureData.xml" file.
9. Traverse to the Database/apdb directory. Select the "BigBlobs.apdb" file and open it with a Hex editor. In this example I will use Hex Fiend by Ridiculous Fish (see http://ridiculousfish.com/hexfiend/). Once the file is open perform a Find and Replace ensuring you are finding and replacing Text and not Hex. In Hex Fiend this means selecting Edit/Find from the menu and then selecting the "Text" button to the top/left of the window. In your Find/Replace field you will need to find ".arw" and replace it with ".dng", make sure you select "Replace All" (note, do not use the " marks in your search). Do exactly the same for ".ARW" with ".DNG", ".cr2" with ".dng" and ".CR2" with ".DNG" (and whatever particular RAW files were in your system).
10. Perform exactly the same steps in (9) for the files "History.apdb", "ImageProxies.apdb", "Library.apdb" and "Properties.apdb".
That is it, your Aperture Library now contains DNG files instead of your original manufacturer files while still retaining all the Adjustments originally made in Aperture to those manufacturer files. Of course, you can repeat the same step and replace your DNG files with the original RAW manufacturer files if you wish. This process works because:
1. Aperture does not store the Adjustments in the RAW files, it keeps these in its internal SQLite database.
2. By using a Hex Editor you (a) don't have to play with SQLite to gain access to Aperture's data and (b) because you are replacing text that has exactly the same number of characters you are not invalidating the format of the underlying data file - this is why you use a Hex Editor instead of a simple text editor.
Think of Aperture as being a repository that holds Adjustments which then link to the original RAW source. Therefore, the above process simply replaces your RAW source and therefore all the Aperture Adjustments are still valid; same Adjustments, new source. In case you ask, no, you cannot transfer Adjustments in and out of Aperture because there is no standard to transform adjustments between different photographic applications.

A rather involved method, David.
I am sure it works, and compliments for figuring it out, but I think one critical step is missing in your workflow: Before you begin - backup, backup, backup!
And I think, all the edits in your database that you are doing so diligently, is what you bought Aperture for to do for you, why do it yourself?
I convert selected raw files this way - without manually patching the Aperture Library:
Export the originals of the raw images that I want to convert.
Run dng-converter.
Import the converted originals back, flag them, and move them to the project they came from.
Sort the project by capture date, so that identical images are show side by side.
Then I use the Lift&Stamp tool to transfer all adjustments and tags from the original raw to the dng copy. I check, if some edits are left to do, then delete the original.
It may take a little longer than your method, but this way all edits in the library are done by Aperture, and I am protected from accidental slips when editing the property list files. That requires a very careful work.
Patching the database files inside the library may be justified as a last ressort, when you need to fix and recue a broken Aperture library, and none of the provided tools is working, but not as a routine operation to do batch conversion of image files. It is very error prone. One wrong entry in the library files and your Aperture Library may be unreadable.
Regards
Léonie

Original dng file

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