disconnekt Posted July 25, 2007 Share #1 Posted July 25, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) I'm in the laborious process of exporting my entire Aperture library to be able to import into Lightroom. (It's a long story, but the extreme slowness of Aperture on my MacBook Pro is the main reason I'm switching.) Anyway, as I import my RAW files into Lightroom, should I convert them all to DNG? And can/should I then delete the RAW originals? I don't have the luxury of hard drive space to conserve both version of the files, so I need to choose either RAW or DNG. Does either take up less file space? Thanks in advance for your advice! -alison Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted July 25, 2007 Posted July 25, 2007 Hi disconnekt, Take a look here moving from Aperture to Lightroom—should I convert all to DNG?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Eoin Posted July 25, 2007 Share #2 Posted July 25, 2007 Surprised to read of your slowness on a MBP. possibly the lack of HDD space or ram has something to do with overall speed. Anyway in answer to your question, your files in the raw state from the camera can be lossless compressed to dng. I'm not sure of the space saving, you'd have to see how the file size differs in DNG as opposed to raw. I would never delete the originals, move them to an external drive perhaps. I'm considering upgrading my 100Gb 7600 drive to something a little larger like a 160Gb and then I can also use the old drive as an external FW. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fjmcsu Posted July 26, 2007 Share #3 Posted July 26, 2007 Alison, I would just import the RAW files & would not delete them even if you decide to convert.You could also embed the RAW file in the DNG is so desired at a cost of speed & size.I used to convert ally my NEF(Nikon RAW) files to DNG (not embedded)but it's one less step now with the M8. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted July 26, 2007 Share #4 Posted July 26, 2007 How do you embed a RAW file in the DNG? Surely the DNG file IS the RAW file? What else is there? Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lkfosterl Posted July 26, 2007 Share #5 Posted July 26, 2007 Embedding the original RAW file is an optional preference when converting to DNG. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted July 26, 2007 Share #6 Posted July 26, 2007 Andy, I use the DNG converter to convert M8 DNGs to errrr, DNGs in order to get a full sized preview for iView to pick up. It also has the advantage of losslessly compressing the files. The M8 only records a medium sized Jpeg in the native DNG file. I played around with imbedding the original DNG in the converted DNG, but it made the file bigger, slowed the process down, and I couldn't see a way of getting them out of the converted DNG, so I stopped doing it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
disconnekt Posted July 26, 2007 Author Share #7 Posted July 26, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Thanks for the replies. I cannot afford the hard drive space to convert all to DNGs AND keep the original RAWs (or embed them). If I'm going to be exclusively using Lightroom and Photoshop, is there any reason to convert to DNG? Should I just stick with the RAWs and forego the DNG conversion? On the other hand, if the DNG preserves all the info from the RAW, why do I need to keep the original? Thanks again for helping me understand! Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted July 26, 2007 Share #8 Posted July 26, 2007 Alison It's possible that the compressed DNGs will be smaller than the original RAW files - this is certainly the case with files from the M8. If you can verify that the converted RAW files are ok, then I see no reason to keep the originals. You might want to consider investing in an external hard drive, as new files build up rapidly <grin>. Also think about backups/mirroring, otherwise a hard drive failure could wipe out everything. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
disconnekt Posted July 26, 2007 Author Share #9 Posted July 26, 2007 Oh, I *do* back up! I have 2 external hard drives for doing so. But they are already full, and I'd have to buy a whole 'nother one just to keep my original RAWs, which I'd rather not have to do as I'm not made of money. BTW I'm shooting with a D-Lux2 and an L1. So, what do you guys think: do I go with the DNGs and trash the RAWs, or just forego the DNGs altogether? Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eoin Posted July 26, 2007 Share #10 Posted July 26, 2007 I wouldn't bother converting to DNG, I'd just leave them in the original raw format and import into LR. Don't forget to delete the actual aperture library file when you are done, it will still have the originals in it. If you already have 2 external backup drives which are full and your HDD on the MBP is also tight on space, your asking for trouble IMO. Before you back your self into a corner I'd upgrade the HDD in the MBP and then get a cheap FW800- -SataII enclosure and use the old MBP HDD to store your images on. Mac's really don't like it when there is less than 20-30% free space on the primary drive. Regularly I have less than 10% and things grind to a crawl but a quick delete or move to external storage is like an speed injection, well on my MBP anyway. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptomsu Posted July 26, 2007 Share #11 Posted July 26, 2007 Why would you like to covert all to DNG? You can do it on purpose, whenever you need it! Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
disconnekt Posted July 26, 2007 Author Share #12 Posted July 26, 2007 I thought maybe DNGs were better, more compact yet preserving all necessary info... I really have no idea what they are to be honest! Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted July 26, 2007 Share #13 Posted July 26, 2007 Aison, DNGs aren't necessarily 'better', but they can be smaller than the originals if the original files aren't compressed already. To be honest I only process the M8 files through the DNG converter because I need the large sized preview that the M8 doesn't provide by itself. I need this to see the files full sized in iVIew. If iVIew could provide such a view itself, or the M8 had a full sized preview by default, I wouldn't both to convert them. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
disconnekt Posted July 26, 2007 Author Share #14 Posted July 26, 2007 Thanks for the input everyone. I think I'll stick with the RAW files after all, since I don't need previews. Now all I have to do is export my entire Aperture library and import it into Lightroom (i.e. easier said than done!!) I'm going to lose all my keywords :-( Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gvaliquette Posted July 26, 2007 Share #15 Posted July 26, 2007 How about an external DVD burner for archiving? Then you can free up the space on your HDD by deleting the files. DVD media are cheap and convenient. Oh, but do keep at least 2 copies of each DVD archives, just to avoid one of these: Guy Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted July 26, 2007 Share #16 Posted July 26, 2007 You need a lot of DVDs though, Guy. I backed up a years worth of DMR shots to DVD a couple of weekends ago. I needed 35... Bearing in mind one DVD will only take 2x 2gig SD cards, you need a lot to keep up with things. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted July 26, 2007 Share #17 Posted July 26, 2007 My main photo archive is now about 800 gig. That would be 200 DVDs. At the moment I mirror all the data I have to other drives, but even that's not perfect. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stnami Posted July 26, 2007 Share #18 Posted July 26, 2007 You guys are keeping too many images,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,the question is are they that good or am I really kidding myself.................... Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted July 26, 2007 Share #19 Posted July 26, 2007 Imants, no they're not that good, but just last week I was looking at images I rejected 5 years ago and thought there was something I could do with them. Plus I'm a squirrel, I still have programs from classical concerts I went to in the 1970s <grin> Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eoin Posted July 26, 2007 Share #20 Posted July 26, 2007 Thanks for the input everyone. I think I'll stick with the RAW files after all, since I don't need previews. Now all I have to do is export my entire Aperture library and import it into Lightroom (i.e. easier said than done!!) I'm going to lose all my keywords :-( Why are you going to loose your keywords?. When your exporting the master Image from your library there is a check box in the export master dialog called create IPTC4XMP sidecar file, click that and when you import the image into lightroom the keywords are brought in as well AFAIK. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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