Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

I have no idea whether anything is stripped out or not. I personally have never used DNGs, and will never use them, until they are formally accepted as an industry standard by the camera manufacturers. Its a good thing for me that I haven't. While I used Lightroom for years, I also used Canon Digital Photo Professional software which doesn't read DNG files. I recently divested myself of the Abobe universe and now use DXO Photolab which has only limited support for this Adobe "standard". Not an issue for me because I still have all my original .cr2 images. Imagine the situation I would have been in now if I had deleted them all in favor of the Adobe "standard".

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

I hear ya .... I have thousands of shots in DNG format - no problem for Adobe software, but a problem for Nikon & Canon software for sure... I struggle with DPP - seems slow and clunky to me after using Lightroom & Photoshop.

But, I have switched to CR2 raw since switching from Nikon to Canon about a year ago.

I still go back and tweak many of my DNG’s using Lightroom, Photoshop or DXO with no issues, but it might be nice had I saved the original NEF’s from years past.

And of course, had I had any smarts I would have hung onto my 67 Mustang too!

aflundi Loc: Albuquerque, NM

The problem with this approach is that you can only compare known data. Exiftool, though probably the most complete metadata reader available, still only understands a tiny fraction of the total metadata. A year from now, more tags and other data will have been decoded and added, but unless the manufacturers open up, the process will continue slowly.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

There is nothing wrong with converting to DNGs, especially for those who are completely invested in Adobe tools and are likely to remain so. For the rest of us though, it can be a problem.

juanbalv Loc: Los Angeles / Hawthorne

Bill_de Loc: US

Sitting at my laptop I found the following don't seem to have an issue with DNG:

Corel Paint Shop Pro
Dark Table (Output can be sent to Gimp)
On1 2018.5
Zoner Photo Suite
Microsoft Photos
Irfanview
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The only software that wasn't able to open DNG files were those from camera manufactures. While not universally accepted it is getting pretty popular.

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Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

I can take the DNG file back to whatever program I processed it in and simply click on the default setting.
I can also save the DNG file with a different name, which gives me a lot more information on the surface than sorting through sidecar files.
For example, I might have a picture of a hibiscus as a DNG file. I process it in many different ways and simply use "File > Save As" to rename it:
hibiscus-photoshop-redfield.dng
hibiscus-photoshop-topaz-remask.dng
hibiscus-opticspro.dng

etc.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

Yep. My Yuneec Typhoon H drone allows me to set DNG as the default picture format.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

What if I want to edit the same DNG file in two different software programs that support DNG format. I can do that now with the same .cr2 file, and at the same time. Each program creates its own proprietary sidecar file. Since no side car files are created with DNG format how would it work editing the same DNG in two different programs without having to first create a second copy of the DNG with a different name? Hardly sounds like an elegant solution especially now that two separate copies of the DNG raw file will be need to be managed.

aflundi Loc: Albuquerque, NM

So much for the saving space argument.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

Each software program creates its own DNG file with File > Save As, and I'll never lose a sidecar file with all those edits in it.
Many file programs don't keep the sidecar file with the RAW file, so they often get lost. I don't like lost files.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

Not really.
Two separate CR2 files vs. two separate DNG files saves about 50%.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Wait this is not making any sense. If I have a an original .CR2 raw file, I can open that same exact file in a multiple of programs and edit it simultaneously. Each post processing program maintains a separate and small sidecar file for that purpose. If after I import my Canon raw files into Lightroom as DNG files and then edit them in LR and I want to edit those same DNG files in a different post processing program, are you saying I can't do that?

Are you saying I have to create a brand new DNG file from my raw file? And if I can open the DNG file I created and edited in Lightroom in another program, what will I see, and how can I go back to the unedited version of that DNG just for the new program I'm editing it in so I can basically do similar edits in both programs for comparison purposes. If I can't do that, then throwing away native raw files for DNGs is really a useless exercise for those of us with multiple post processing software programs. Creating multiple DNG versions of the same image with different names would be a support nightmare and would eliminate any potential space savings that DNG files supposedly would give you.