A multiconverter workflow

As 3 different RAWconverters are in use here - each one has its own pro's and con's - I' m wondering about the best methode for storing the RAWs.

One of the converters is LR; I would like to have its RAWs and the edits as DNGs, as the edits are together with the RAWfile, which makes datastorage and -handling easier; aka catalog- and LR-independent. I 'm aware of the sidecar-option, but find the DNG-solution more elegant.

So far so good - but when using other converters like C1, or RAW Developer, they ignore the LR-edits, which is ok, as the renderengine's isn't the same anyway.

When editing a DNG with these two converters, they don't load the default camera profile anymore; it seems that DNG doesn't requires any profile.
- Is that correct?

The 2nd question:
Why does a DNG shows in non LR-converters differently up than the original RAW (CR.2) ?
- Still the original RAW is within the DNG, so its a question of profile only?

I know, that embedding the original RAW in the DNG is possible, but makes the filesize twice as big. As for C1, I have the etc-profiles, which I would like to use still in the future, but that doesn't seems to be possible when going consequently the DNG-workflow.

Any thoughts, comments and hints?

I too prefer to use DNG and wish more converters would support the format. I hear the next major version of Bibble will. Aperture (prior to 2.0 which I didn't upgrade) was hit or miss. Love Raw Developer. Don't use it much however.

As for DNG, there's an embedded JPEG which needs to be updated. Lightroom stores previews outside the Raws or DNGs and that's what you see however, you can update the embedded JPEG in a DNG as well, that should sync up the previews for other applications that do handle DNG properly.

I see no reason to embed the entire Raw into the DNG. I understand why some would (they want to go back to the proprietary camera manufacture’s converter). Since they made the data proprietary from the get go, I'm not going back!

Thanks Andrew

still there remains a question:
meanwhile LR shows the exactly same preview and histogramm of a RAWfile and its DNG, the other mentioned converters produce different previews and histogramms (!!) of them. The image data is the same, so what happens in between?

Here's the sample with RAW Developer:

>Because they all use a different processing engine, color space and rendering controls<

basically, this means that LR uses the same engine for RAWS and DNGs*, meanwhile the other ones apply different settings for the two formats?

* as in LR, preview and histogram of RAW and DNG are identical.

Michael Fontana said:

>Because they all use a different processing engine, color space and rendering controls<

basically, this means that LR uses the same engine for RAWS and DNGs*, meanwhile the other ones apply different settings for the two formats?

* as in LR, preview and histogram of RAW and DNG are identical.

Click to expand...

LR and ACR use the same engine, the result of edits are an embedded JPEG (if saved) that reflect that rendering. DNG is just a container for the Raw data and a JPEG (among other things).

The JPEG needs to be updated inside the DNG and how and when each other application does this needs to be investigated. In LR you have a command to update both the metadata and the embedded JPEG. Then the question is, outside the Raw converter in question, is the preview being seen that of the DNG or built and stored elsewhere (which is the case with LR/ACR).

Michael Fontana said:

basically, this means that LR uses the same engine for RAWS and DNGs*, meanwhile the other ones apply different settings for the two formats?

Click to expand...

I don't know for certain, but I believe that Lightroom, ACR and any other Adobe products supporting raw use DNG as the common format internally. So, I would expect that LR, ACR, et al would all give you an identical reproduction regardless of whether it was a native RAW or DNG.

The DNG color profiles are stored as matrices instead of look up tables, and the linearization, black compensation, and clipping is handled differently from some converters' methods. Converters that use look up tables have to either change their color management system over to the DNG way and reprofile all their supported cameras, or use a different pipeline for DNG than they do for the native raw. You can't completely encode most LUT style profiles as a matrix in a way that gives you an identical result, so the choice would be to make the native color match the DNG instead of the other way around, and some of us like our color better than the DNG way The specification allows for the data to be pre-compensated for black level and the masking pixels to be trimmed out. Some converters use the masking pixels to calculate black level and noise so that could be the cause of some differences. I don't know if the Adobe converter pre-compensates or not, so it might not be an issue.

If you want to see an example of how much difference in color rendering different converters have, you might take a look at the DPReview review of the D300. There's a Macbeth ColorChecker on page 17 that show the difference between ACR, Capture NX, and Bibble.

-Colleen

Thanks Colleen

now, I understand better.
The masking pixels - are these the pixes outside of the image, at the sensors border?
The question might be language-related.

And another question:
If a camera isn't supported yet, therefore no cam-profile within the converter, but can write DNGs on the CF-card, which matrix is used for decoding the DNG?

Michael Fontana said:

The masking pixels - are these the pixes outside of the image, at the sensors border?

Click to expand...

I should have written "masked" pixels. They are pixels from the edges of the sensor that have been covered so no light falls on it. It's a good place to measure black level and noise.

If a camera isn't supported yet, therefore no cam-profile within the converter, but can write DNGs on the CF-card, which matrix is used for decoding the DNG?

Click to expand...

If the camera writes DNG, the profile written is the manufacturer's color profile for that camera. Third party raw converters usually override this with their own profile if they support the camera. If the image was converted from a native raw, then the profile was embedded by the converter (currently 99% of all converted DNGs have Adobe's color profiles embedded).

-Colleen