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From https://photographylife.com/dng-vs-raw

> DNG strips out most of the unrecognized meta data (such as Active D-Lighting, Picture Controls, Focus Point, etc) from RAW files, making it impossible to retrieve this data from DNG in the future.

The last time I used a DSLR was when I was doing color research in 2012. At the time, raw format was the only thing that preserved all necessary information to make scientific observations.

Most people don't need to care about such things. I just wanted to mention you're irretrievably throwing away metadata when you DNG-dong your pictures.

It's probably a worthwhile trade in most cases though.




> At the time, raw format was the only thing that preserved all necessary information to make scientific observations.

Which "RAW" format? I think that is the problem - there are many and few are completely documented, which is where DNG comes in (https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/products/photoshop...).

Great point about throwing away metadata, and probably worthwhile to safeguard that one's flavor of RAW files (CR2/NEF/etc) can be reliably read in the future when the software necessary to read them inevitably disappears from the cloud.


This isn't correct. You can embed the original RAW file within the converted one.


To be fair: this will use more disk space, but if you want to be able to keep the RAW and use DNG this is the way to go. I wasn't sure if I needed it so when I imported in Lightroom I quickly switched to embedding the original RAW image in the DNG just in case.




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