Photoshop CS3 RAW

Archiving And Working With dng

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CONVERTING TO DNG WITH CAMERA RAW

Converting to DNG

with Camera Raw

Regardless of whether you are working on one image or a series

of several images, here is the basic step-by-step process for us-

ing Camera Raw to convert your RAW les into the DNG format.

I’ll get more specic about converting multiple les later in this

section.

To convert:

Open your native 1. RAW file or files

in Camera Raw. It doesn’t matter if

Camera Raw is hosted by Photoshop

or Bridge.

Use Camera Raw to adjust or tweak 2.

your images. (If your images need no

adjustment, you can obviously skip

this step.)

Chose Save Images from the bottom 3.

left of the Camera Raw dialog box.

The Save Options dialog box, shown

in Figure 11-14, appears. (In the

future, you can skip this dialog box by

holding the Option (Alt) key when you

select Save Images.

Choose a Destination from the pop-up

menu shown in Figure 11-15. You can

select Save in New Location or Save in

Same Location. If you choose Save in

New Location you can select a separate

destination for your converted images.

Choose a File Naming protocol. As you

can see in Figure 11-16, the choices here

are similar to those you get with the Batch

Rename command.

From the Save Options dialog box, you

can also save your RAW file into other

file formats such as JPEG, TIFF, or PSD, by

selecting from the Format pop-up menu,

shown in Figure 11-17. You can select and

save only one file format at a time. If you

want to save multiple file formats. you’ll

need to refer to Chapter 12.

Figure 11-14

Figure 11-15

Figure 11-16

Figure 11-17

214

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CHAPTER ElEvEn

CONVERTING TO DNG WITH CAMERA RAW

When you choose a Format, an

appropriate extension is selected. The

file extension for DNG is .dng, obviously.

(Uppercase is also an option.) As you can

see in Figure 11-18, there are a few other

options here:

Select • Compressed (lossless) and your

DNG file will be about a 1/3 smaller

than the original RAW file with no

tradeoff in quality or flexibility. It does,

however, slow the conversion process

considerably.

Select • Convert to Linear Image and

your file will be more than three times

the size of the original RAW file. Since

it is separated into separate red, green,

and blue channels, you’ve essentially

lost many of the advantages of saving

RAW data. Adobe claims that in some

instances, saving a demosaiced file can

improve compatibility, particularly if

the camera sensor contains an unusual

mosaic pattern that all converters do

not support.

Select • Embed Original Raw File if you

want an exact copy of the original

RAW file stored within the DNG file.

This will create a file about 2/3 larger

than the original RAW file. At this time,

you’ll need the Adobe DNG converter

to retrieve the stored file from the

DNG file.

When you select Save, you return to the

Camera Raw workspace and you’ll get

a save status message at the bottom of

the window (enlarged in Figure 11-19). It

may take some time, depending on the

number of files you are converting and

the options you choose.

Figure 11-19

Figure 11-18