Do I understand this at all? When I dump my RAW images from my card into Lightroom I get CR files (I guess CR stands for "camera raw"?). And although Lightroom supplies tools to alter the CR files, most people convert them to TIFF files using a RAW File Converter (like Breezebrowser for Canon) and after converting, load them into Photoshop to do post processing? Do people generally work on RAW files before converting?

I have Canon ImageBrowser EX that came with the camera (7D) but as far as I've been able to discover, you can't edit RAW files in that software, only JPGs. I'd appreciate any guidance. Thanks!

LOL Okay, so you caught me!!! When I committed to the DNG format, and recognized that LR would store the original (NEF) files for me during import, I did start doing that. It made the commitment easier. It's now just part of my workflow, but lately I've been giving a lot of thought to discontinuing the practice. It has never paid dividends to me (never had to re-import a NEF) so I'm starting to consider whether it's something I want to keep doing.

Yes, it is pretty cool. Lightroom is way powerful. I honestly wouldn't consider digital photography without it.

The edits you make in a raw processor only affects the sidecar file or, in the case of DNG, the internal sidecar file for lack of a better term. If you open the file in PS after you adjust in Adobe Raw you should save it as a PSD or tiff so the changes you make, such as adding layers,etc., are preserved if you ever plan to go back in and change something. The original RAW file stays intact with the little tattle tale sidecar reporting n the last state you left it in but doesn't permanently change the original RAW file. You do not add layers, etc., in a Raw file.

The edits you make in a raw processor only affects the sidecar file or, in the case of DNG, the internal sidecar file for lack of a better term. If you open the file in PS after you adjust in Adobe Raw you should save it as a PSD or tiff so the changes you make, such as adding layers,etc., are preserved if you ever plan to go back in and change something. The original RAW file stays intact with the little tattle tale sidecar reporting n the last state you left it in but doesn't permanently change the original RAW file. You do not add layers, etc., in a Raw file.

Yes, LR has a raw file converter, but I perceive the raw file as my negative, and I will always maintain the negative, so I don't necessarily want to "convert the raw image". That said, I do convert the Nikon NEF raw image to a DNG raw image so I can use the file in Adobe products the way I want, but I catalog and maintain that DNG file from now on.

Your understanding is very close. DNG, CR2, NEF (and others) are all raw file formats. The thing that makes the DNG format different is that it was created by Adobe instead of a camera manufacturer. They created it for a very specific reason. First, and foremost, it keeps your image contained in a raw format, but it is structured to hold lots of additional data about the image contained in that file. The additional data it holds is specific to the edits that have been performed on the image by Adobe products. As soon as you make a change to the image (in LR, for instance), that change is recorded in the DNG file (not a copy of the DNG file) and when LR renders it to your monitor, it reads in all of the edits and renders the photo in its edited state.

Because the structure of CR2 and NEF files (and others) do not support storage of edits (made by LR) within the file, if you decide to keep the file in its original format (CR2, NEF, etc.), LR has to have someplace to record those edits. It does so by writing them to a sidecar file. Then, when you call up an image to your monitor for viewing, LR has to go read that sidecar file to see what edits have been applied to the image so that it renders it properly. Same as it was with a DNG file, except that it has to read those edits from another file instead of directly from the DNG. Personally, I didn't want this (keeping up with 2 files for each image), so I opted to use the DNG format for all my images. Yes, it requires me to be committed to the Adobe products, but I have to have something and no one approaches this technology quite like Adobe, so I'm good with it.

Hope I'm making some sense for you. I have worked in technology (as a software developer) since the 80s, and I believe it's a surprise to most folks who decide to buy a DSLR just how much knowledge of computers is required. Even the camera is a miniature computer!!

Do I understand this at all? When I dump my RAW images from my card into Lightroom I get CR files (I guess CR stands for "camera raw"?). And although Lightroom supplies tools to alter the CR files, most people convert them to TIFF files using a RAW File Converter (like Breezebrowser for Canon) and after converting, load them into Photoshop to do post processing? Do people generally work on RAW files before converting?

I have Canon ImageBrowser EX that came with the camera (7D) but as far as I've been able to discover, you can't edit RAW files in that software, only JPGs. I'd appreciate any guidance. Thanks!