Saving raw files

[Carl one]

I think (??) I have the process of importing, modifying, & saving of raw files figgured out, however I would appreciate imput from more knowledgable people.
Step 1. Download into the downloader.
Step 2. Make entries in the save, Advanced, & Metadata sections.
Step 3. Get photos.
Step 4. Make adjustments to raw file & save as DNG file.
Step 5. Make adjustments if required in Editor.
Step 6. Save as JPEG.

By using these step I have been able to take a totally underexposed image and salvage a decent snapshot type of picture of it. Your comments please. Thank you. CTE

[Chuck S.]

Carl, looks good to me. I am curious about Step 2, however. I guess that's just some additional information on the picture you want to preserve?

By the way, are you also keeping the original RAW file in addition to the DNG? I would certainly encourage that; you just might want to go back to it again and it will be the pristine original if you preserve it.

Chuck

[PaulH]

I think (??) I have the process of importing, modifying, & saving of raw files figgured out, however I would appreciate imput from more knowledgable people.
Step 1. Download into the downloader.
Step 2. Make entries in the save, Advanced, & Metadata sections.
Step 3. Get photos.
Step 4. Make adjustments to raw file & save as DNG file.
Step 5. Make adjustments if required in Editor.
Step 6. Save as JPEG.

By using these step I have been able to take a totally underexposed image and salvage a decent snapshot type of picture of it. Your comments please. Thank you. CTE

personally, I see no use for a dng file. I also don't use PSE's organiser

Here is mine

Step 1. Download into the folder

Step 4. Make adjustments to raw file with ACR
Step 5. Make adjustments if required in Editor.
Step 6. Save as PSD
7 - make any Jpegs, web Jpegs, etc.

[Carl one]

Chuck, Paul. Thank you for your reply. As I said before "I thought I understood" however apperently I do not. To answer your question Chuck-Step 2. Make entries in the save, Advanced, & Metadata sections.
That info can be put in as metadata & remains with the original raw file & in step 4 when the file is saved for the 1st time it show as two files (1) the raw file .dng the (2nd) is the metadata file for the image as a .xmp file.

Paul for your question about the dng file. Since the varrious camera manfactures set their own raw image file extensions (Olympus is .ORF) Adobe came up with using .dng as a universal file extinsion & hopefully everybody will start using it for compatibility & ease of use.

Aftersaying that I tried to bring up the file in Windows and it will not work. The nice part is I can delete everything and keep trying on a different image.

[NickLewis]

Hi Carl,

I agree: the principal benefit of saving as a DNG file is that (hopefully) the format will have greater longevity. But it will only have that if it is widely adopted.

I don't keep DNG files myself, but if you're starting from scratch and have the disk space, it's possibly a prudent precaution...... Personally I doubt that software manufacturers are going to drop support for existing mainstream RAW formats in the foreseeable future. However, that said, we are accustomed to having our images storable & viewable over timescales measured in lifetimes, and the PC industry has absolutely no track record of being reliable in that way..... And I am conscious that I am building up a huge backlog task for myself if ever I have to go down the DNG route. But I wouldn't throw away the RAW either - it could be that it is DNG that falls by the wayside.....

There's one other point I'd make, which is implied in Paul's list, but which you may not have picked up on. You are storing your final versions as JPG's. That's a compressed format using lossy compression, and repeated opening, editing and resaving of JPGs degrades image quality. For a lot of purposes, that degradation is of little practical consequence, but it is real nonetheless.

Best practice is to store your images at full resolution using a losslessly compressed format (TIFF or JPEG 2000 possibly), and only go to JPGs for emails, web pages etc etc. PSD's achieve the same aim, but I think take up more space.

Unfortunately, unlike film based photos, digital images are not immediately readable by the Mark I Eyeball, which so far has not been generally subject to obsolescence......;)

Nick