Help Me Understand...

[andalus]

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I have an M9 and after some shots I take out the card and put it into my Mac Book Pro. The Leica file appears on the desktop and I open it up and find my shots. I am shooting uncompressed raw. I move the files to my desktop and them put them in the Pictures folder. Now, are these files DNG files, or are they Leica "raw" files? I presume just DNG. Is this so? Now, with these images in my "Pictures" folder on my Mac iif I open LR3, I can of course "see" the files if I click on the appropriate folder. Remember, the shots are in the Pictures folder on the Mac. Has LR 3 developed these files once I "see" them in Lightroom3? I am trying to ensure that LR3 develops them, less noise, in the latest "2010" process. Or is there something else I must do?

 

Also, anything wrong, assuming I adjust the files in LR3, to then go to Photoshop CS5 and convert them to TIFF images? Does this make any difference, assuming I may want to print some of the images in future? Or can I simply not convert and leave as DNG files? What's the difference here?

 

Please help me understand what I should be doing, or maybe I already am doing the right thing, given the M9 shooting uncompressed raw...

Edited June 17, 2010 by andalus

[Marty]

Seems to be just a matter of terminology confusion. DNG files are raw files. If you shoot raw like you do then these are the files you end up with on your card and after copying into your Pictures folder. Most important thing is to keep these files always.

 

When you now look at these files through LR, the only "developing" that takes place is what needs to be done to show you an actual photo - or rather preview of it - on the screen. This happens in the background and so fast that it is completely understandable to not be aware that any "developing" is taking place at all. Also, the original DNG/raw files will just stay where they are, in your Pictures folder, and LR will simply do this "developing" for on-screen display whenever it is needed, immediately and without your intervention.

 

What is called the "Development" module in LR is where you can tune all the development settings per photo, and these are visible immediately as described before. You are still not "creating" anything in the sense of converted files or copies. (Disregarding any intermediate or cached files for LR's own internal use).

 

Only when you choose to "export" a photo in LR, then you are creating a new file. This can be a TIFF or a JPG for printing or something else. You will generally save this somewhere convenient for further processing/emailing/printing etc. But note your original DNG/raw file still remains in place.

 

So far Photoshop has not even entered the equation because you can do all this in LR. With the inclusion of Photoshop for additional effects you need to pay slightly more attention to file management - LR will ask you - but these are the basics. Does all this make sense?

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[andalus]

Thanks for the response. I guess my question is, and maybe you've answered it, is that when I have a DNG file and have adjusted it in some way with LR3, is it then printable as an adjusted DNG image and "saved" as such? If so, then I need not convert any DNG images to JPEGS or TIFFS(?) for archival purposes(?) The assumption here is that I can stay with my original DNG files and need go no further in converting them to something else, although they've been adjusted in LR3. Does this make sense?

[Marty]

Re archiving: for archiving all you need to keep is your DNG files. Technically the adjustments you make in LR, while also kept with/in the same DNG file, are kept separate from the original raw image data so that you never have to worry about losing that.

 

Re printing: it depends. My printer service requires that I deliver the files as JPG of a certain resolution depending on the paper size. In this case I can export my photo from LR as a JPG, into a temporary folder, and upload it to the printer. I remove the JPG when I am done, knowing that I can create it again from the original DNG when needed. If you have your own printer you can print from LR directly and need not worry about any conversions/exports.

[vikasmg]

Thanks for the response. I guess my question is, and maybe you've answered it, is that when I have a DNG file and have adjusted it in some way with LR3, is it then printable as an adjusted DNG image and "saved" as such? If so, then I need not convert any DNG images to JPEGS or TIFFS(?) for archival purposes(?) The assumption here is that I can stay with my original DNG files and need go no further in converting them to something else, although they've been adjusted in LR3. Does this make sense?

 

As far as I know, Lightroom is actually not modifying your DNG file at all, just storing the modifications you make in a separate file. So if you are sending the file to print to an external party or through another program you will need to export it as a TIFF or JPG file or whatever is appropriate. If you are printing it yourself Lightroom 2x did a fairly good job of it without any external help and I trus Lightroom 3 will as well (have not printed anything with the current version yet).

[msk2193]

Andalus,

If you are printing or sending to a printer, export your edited file to a jpg file in the correct size and at maximum quality.

As long as you keep the DNG file together with its sidecart created by Lightroom you will not need to worry. If there is a chance they get separated, then also do an export to TIFF of your image and keep that as your master-edited image.

Good luck.

[microview]

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I think you can do all/most of what you want in LR3. Having imported the files you have the three options, library/develop/print. The original files would remain in your Pics folder – or you can more easily download DNGs via card reader to Mac desktop and then create a named folder for them. Then in LR3 import the folder to see and process the images.

A processed image you then 'Export' as a tiff at 300 dpi etc (window opens for this function and your choice of parameters). But the modified image you can print straight away from LR3, bypassing Photoshop altogether. If you change your mind about the way you have 'developed' your pic you can cancel History and it reverts to image as from camera. It's a far nicer program than Capture One!

[adan]

There are two parts to answer the original question:

 

First, there are multiple formats for storing "raw" image data - Nikon cameras build ".NEF" files, Canon cameras build ".CR2" files, Panasonics build ".RAW" files, etc. Rather than create their own proprietary file format (say, ".LCR" or ".LEI" tags) Leica simply adopted Adobe's suggested open format, ".DNG" - but it is just as much a "raw" file as Panasonic's ".RAW" or Nikon's ".NEF" raw files.

 

In all those formats, a "raw" file consists of a monochrome .TIFF file of the brightness levels for all the pixels, plus an "envelope" of metadata and a preview .jpg. It is the envelope that varies with the raw file type (NEF, CR2, DNG). The metadata contains both the visible EXIF information, and also guides to how to read and process the raw data - the pixel dimensions of the image, which pixels contain red, green, and blue data, etc.

 

So far as I know - no program from anyone ever changes the essential "raw" data. Some programs DO change the metadata also contained in the same envelope - which has led to problems in cases where people are working directly with .DNG files still on the card and/or still in the camera. The images become unreadable by the camera except as file names (L1013265.dng) plus a black screen.

 

So it is good that you are copying the files to your computer and working with those copies, not directly with the images on the card.

______________

 

Now - as to what changes get saved and how: Adobe handles their own .dng format differently than they do the proprietary camera-makers' formats.

 

With proprietary formats, Adobe saves a side-car file, called an .xmp, which records the changes you make to the image (white balance, brightness, retouched pixels, profile used, etc).

 

I.E., if you shoot Nikon, there will be an N1043667.xmp file associated with your N1043667.NEF picture.

 

Each time you open a proprietary raw image, Adobe's programs read the image files AND the associated .xmp, using the .xmp to recreate the image as you last saved it, and save new changes. (DIgital intellectual property and all that - Nikon would likely get very upset if Adobe rewrote their proprietary code with each "save" of an image, especially if it made the file unreadable to Nikon's own NikonView)

 

With .dngs, a sidecar file is not necessary, since Adobe controls that format and can essentially write a record of the settings and changes into the metadata, rather than into a separate file.

 

LR and Aperture have to some extent muddied the waters by putting all the steps into one user interface, so it may be easier to understand if I explain how the same process is broken down using Adobe Bridge, Camera Raw, and Photoshop.

 

Bridge is the image-asset manangement program - the lightbox of images, if you will.

 

If you double-click a raw image in Bridge, it opens Photoshop and the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in, and the ACR contains the raw-developing interface in a separate window - WB settings, profiles, lens corrections, brightness saturation contrast exposure - all that stuff that also shows up in LR.

 

If you then proceed to make changes and either save them or open the image on into Photoshop - ACR either: saves an .xmp file in the same folder as the original raw image for non-dng formats (not changing the original) - OR - writes the changes directly into the metadata of the original if it is a .dng (changing the file overall but not the image data within it).

 

Photoshop itself does NOT allow saving an open image in the .dng or any other "raw" format - only as jpeg, tiff, bmp, png or a dozen or so other "non-raw" finished image formats, or as a Photoshop (.psd) document. If you have a .dng or .nef open and hit "save", you get the "save as" dialogue - you CANNOT overwrite the original raw format in any way from PS.

_________________

 

As to which file format is most archival - frankly all of them are to some extent at the mercy of the "creative destruction" of the technology marketplace. Will Adobe be around in 20/50/100 years? .DNG? .JPG? .TIF? .PSD?

 

We can hope so, but I don't think there a guarantee for any of them - one simply must pay a certain amount of attention to technological developments as time goes by, and migrate prized images to new formats (and new storage media) if an existing format looks like it may be declining.

 

(My MA thesis was written in ClarisWorks (or was it WriteNow?) - it would not be readable today had I not migrated it to .txt format a dozen years ago - and someday it may need to be migrated again.)

 

Prints are the one archival format that will always be readable. A HD crash last winter irretrievably ate a week's worth of un-backed-up images (my backup strategy is now improved!!) - but I was able to scan in the most crucial pictures because I had printed them.

Edited June 20, 2010 by adan

[Judy Babinski]

Thanks Andy. Is there any way to get LR to post the changes to a Leica DNG file to an xmp. side car file or are we stuck with having the LR changes to the DNG files included in the metadata. I would just feel more comfortable that the original raw DNG image was not changed if I could see a xmp. file for the image. Maybe this is just a crutch on my part.

 

Judy Babinski

[stunsworth]

Is there any way to get LR to post the changes to a Leica DNG file to an xmp. side car file...

 

Not that I'm aware of.

[richam]

Not that I'm aware of.

 

Photo>Save Metadata to File or cmd-S (on the Mac) seems to produce an xmp file next to the original raw and/or jpeg files. The same can be produced by a right click on the image. Is this what we're referring to?